Donde esta Maria?

Dr. Maria DiPalma is a large reason I decided to attend Simpson College.  I came down to Indianola for my audition on April 19, 2005.  Maria greeted my mother and me, introduced herself and told me about the audition process.  The moment my eyes laid upon Maria I knew Simpson would be the school for me.  She was wearing the coolest shoes I'd ever seen a professor wear!  Admittedly, I hadn't seen many professors, but these shoes were awesome.  They had giant rhinestones all over them!  Also, without even knowing her last name, I could tell Dr. DiPalma was Italian.  She looked a lot like some of the women in my family -- conveniently my mother happens to be full-blood Italian.  Unfortunately, you can't tell I'm half Italian thanks to my dad's English/German/Irish genes.  I digress.  After Maria explained the audition process she asked if I had any questions.  I cannot recall what I said, but I can only assume it was funny because I remember Maria laughing or cackling, rather.  Maria is a cackler.

For anyone who has known me more than 30 seconds should be well aware of how nerdy I am.  So what I’m about to tell you should be no shock.  Truthfully, I should probably be ashamed to admit this, but I'm not.  When I first got to Simpson in the fall of 2005, I pretended I was at Hogwarts.  Like Hogwarts for Harry, Simpson was this new magical (metaphorically) escape from what I considered to be the torturous clutches of rural Iowa.  I tried to match my professors to the characters in the Harry Potter series.  Maria DiPalma was clearly the understated badass that is Minerva McGonagall.  Knowing I had my own version of Professor McGonagall was strangely comforting to me.  Maria’s office was full of eclectic oddities like little metal spiders or a stegosaurus figurine or the boar’s head that we used for the madrigal dinner.  She always had coffee mugs and teacups strewn around the office.  I never told Maria about this comparison, but I can only imagine she’d be pleased to hear about it.

I was never in Maria’s studio, but she was my advisor.  We had a mutual understanding that I would figure out my schedule and she’d sign me up for the classes.  There wasn’t much advising.  Every once in awhile, Maria would recommend I sign up for a different section of a class because she liked that professor better.  The only time she really warned me against taking a specific class was for my senior colloquium.  This is a capstone at Simpson where seniors take a class that helps them to define who they are and what their contributions to society as a whole can be.  Yank, yank, right?  Anyway, I was signing up for “Crafting Your Life” with one of the school chaplains.  Maria told me point blank that I would hate this class and she didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to take it citing that it was “very touchy –feely and about finger painting.”  Unfortunately, this was the only senior colloquium that would fit in my schedule.  I would love to say that Maria was wrong and this class was a wonderful learning experience for me and allowed me to grow mentally, creatively and spiritually.  However, Maria was 100% right.  I hated every damn minute of that class. 

It was a project in this class that got me sent to Maria’s office like I was a truant teenager.  We were assigned a cornerstone project where each student to create a power point presentation about each of the general education classes we had taken throughout our time at Simpson.  At the time the presentation was completed I still had three cornerstones left to take.  After I turned in my project, my professor e-mailed informing me that my project was incomplete and I had 24 hours to add the three pictures and paragraphs or I’d fail.  Believe you me I wrote an angry response to my professor outlining her syllabus; stating that I had in fact completed the project to her specifications and that if she wanted something different she should have so.  Turns out she had changed the project during the one class I missed the whole semester.  The next day there was a note for me on the board summoning me to Maria’s office.  I figured she needed to talk to me about some props for the opera, except she didn’t.  She informed me that my senior colloquium professor had essentially tattled on me and requested Maria give me a talking-to.  Though she agreed with my assessment of the situation, Maria warned me against the consequences of e-mailing while angry.  She made me apologize to my professor and told me to pretend like I was interacting with a donor – it would be good practice for me.  Maria offered me some sage advice that day when she said, “Carolyne, stupid people don’t like it when you point out their stupidity.”  Truer words were never spoken, Maria.

It has been a few days since I learned that Maria has stopped her chemo treatments and moved into a hospice center this week after a nine year battle with cancer.  While the idea that this could happen has been sitting in the back of my mind, I always believed she'd kick cancer in groin and prevail triumphantly.  Dr. DiPalma isn't one to take shit from anyone.  She's a tough, straight-shooting broad – a wonderful role model.  I can only imagine as she passes on from this world to the next that she’ll be making a grand entrance at a party wearing some elaborately fabulous ensemble with some equally amazing shoes.  Someone will hand her a very dirty martini.  Someone else will tell a dirty joke, and Maria’s cackle will be heard throughout kingdom come.

Does Non-profit Mean Unaccountable?

I recently read a blog post by Diane Ragsdale in which she discusses the amount of nonprofit arts organizations and the funding pool in which they exist.  She accurately used the metaphor of "too many fish in the pond."  In a simple economic look at our sub-sector, we have a surplus and not enough demand. While the arts help make a community vibrant, is there a point at which we have too much?  Is our market so saturated with arts organizations that our audiences, current and potential, are so overwhelmed to the point of indifference?  This begs the time old question:  quality versus quantity?  If our revenue streams vis a vis individual and corporate contributions were more focused on a smaller number of organizations, would the quality improve?  Would more people be willing to donate if there were fewer organizations asking for money?

Is there something we as citizens can do to deal with this potential problem?  I've been thinking about the possibility of a policy that could help cut down on the number of arts organizations.  Before you get your panties of righteousness in a bunch, hear me out.  There is a definite problem with arts organizations being poorly managed and having to close their doors as a result.  The worse the economy gets the more organizations are forced to file for bankruptcy or dramatically scale back their seasons or cease to exist altogether.  The strongest factor in this problem is the reliance upon public funding.  Ragsdale suggests that "the lack of ‘ownership’ in the nonprofit system too often seems to result in a lack of ‘accountability.’"  Meaning that because nonprofits are for public benefit with boards of directors seeing over the administrative staff there isn't always a clear communication stream nor a clear sense of ownership.

I am suggesting that we, the public, demand accountability of our nonprofit organizations.  They are here for us, why not insist upon not only quality products and services, but quality management?  With the installation of some sort of policy that requires nonprofits to be more accountable, we would stipulate that companies do what they can to mitigate the possibility of running a deficit.  I know we already have some regulations in place such as tax filings, etc.  However, so many companies continually end their fiscal year in the red and don't do anything to change their practices.  Perhaps what I'm suggesting is the establishment of implications, consequences for poor management.  I am not completely sure how this will happen in our capitalistic free market.  Maybe Adam Smith's invisible hand needs speed up and use the proverbial fly swatter to help eliminate these mismanaged nonprofits from the market place for good.  I'm not sure how to solve this problem, but it's definitely something to think about.

--Caro

What is Cultural Policy?

What is cultural policy?  That is a great question, and a very pertinent one for a cultural and public policy class.  However, culture and policy can be difficult to define.  In attempts to better understand, I did some research.  I read a very interesting article by Caron Atlas discussing what cultural policy is.  She brought up some interesting points.  Cultural policy doesn’t always operate in the public realm, though public and cultural policy often go together.  She defines cultural policy as “both a product and a process, a framework for making rules and decisions that are informed by social relationships and values.”  I think this is a great definition.  However, to fully understand what is cultural policy, I think there needs to be an understanding of the basic key words culture, public, and policy.

According to the Conjecture Corporation, as published on wiseGeek.com,  public policy is "an attempt by the government to address a public issue.  The government, whether it is city, state, or federal, develops public policy in terms of laws, regulations, decisions, and actions."  To simplify this even further, there's a problem and a governing body does something to change or fix it.  According to thefreedictionary.com, public can be defined as "of, concerning, or affecting the community or the people."  I think public policy can be applied to any group, such as a school or a business.  As long as there is a group being affected by some sort of governing body's actions, there is public policy.  To bottom line this concept:  community action.

Now, the more difficult concept to define is culture.  One really needs to know the scope for which the concept is being defined – the frame of reference, if you will.  Is it culture as it relates to anthropology, the standard connotation of art, or perhaps it pertains to the medical and scientific fields?  As I am pursuing a master’s degree in Arts Administration, I can safely assume we are not using the last frame.  That still leaves culture in an anthropological sense or as it pertains to the arts. According to English anthropologist, Edward Tylor, culture, or civilization, includes “knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”  Based on this definition, anything within a society, or community, can be considered culture.  That opens a lot of door in terms of policy discussions.  However, as a member of the arts community, I know culture can be considered a community's foundation in the fine arts, such as theatre, art, dance, music.  If we take this more narrow focus, cultural policy would cover anything relating to art.

In summary a policy is something that addresses a problem and is enacted by a governing body.  A public is a group of people.  As we've discovered, culture can mean different things, but I believe in the context of the class I'm taking culture means relating to the arts.  After learning the definitions, Ms. Atlas' definition makes much more sense.

Help Secure Our Piece of the Pie

As we enter the New Year, Congress commences a new session.  There are many important issues on the docket:  the possible repeal of the Obama Health Care Reform, the Open Internet Order, and overall spending.  However, the issue most important to me is funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, a public agency dedicated to bringing the arts to all Americans.  The NEA is the largest annual national funder of the arts.  A strong connection to arts education, the NEA helps to fund and carry out educational initiatives, such as The Big Read, which gives communities the opportunity to read and discuss one of 31 selections from the U.S. and world literary cannon.

In fiscal year (FY) 2010, the NEA was granted $167.5 million to be disbursed to arts organizations, new and established, throughout the United States.   This past February President Obama proposed a $6.4 million decrease for the FY 2011 NEA budget.  The House of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), raised the initial funding level to $170 million this past July.  This is $2.5 million increase over the budget allotment in FY 2010.  The money the Federal government budgets for the NEA each year helps to fund jobs, create safe and educational places for our children to stay after school, enrich the lives of Americans, and increase our cultural worth in world.  While I could write hundreds of thousands of pages lauding the work of the NEA, I am here to ask each reader to contact his or her elected officials and ask them to support the increase to $170 million dollars for the NEA in FY 2011.  With five minutes of your time, you can help to support the arts in America.  Please click here to visit the Americans for the Arts advocacy page to contact your elected officials.  

Caro

Context Is Key

I recently read an article in Publishers Weekly about a professor who is "updating" The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventure of Tom Sawyer by replacing the now culturally offensive "nigger" with the more politically correct word "slave."  Alan Gribben is replacing the n-word in attempt to make the books more accessible and teachable in the 21st century classroom.  Gribben is working with the NEA's Big Read initiative in Alabama. 

While I commend Gribben's efforts for trying to make these masterpieces more suitable for today's classrooms, I cannot help but be ashamed for our society.  We are raising a bunch of weak-minded children who cannot tolerate even learning, let alone questioning, the social conventions of yesteryear.  I read The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn in high school.  I felt uncomfortable every time I read the word "nigger," but my American Literature teacher took the time to explain to me and the class that in the historical context of the book, the n-word wasn't wrong.  It was part of the culture, socially acceptable.  That didn't mean she was advocating our use of it now or ever.  Instead she was opening our eyes to how America was and allowing us to see into a part of history that has helped us become the country we are today.  By glossing over issues like slavery and making books politically correct, we are taking away the importance of the issues being discussed in books like Huckleberry Finn.  Keeping the word "nigger" in the books opens up the opportunity to discuss the power of words -- the abuse thereof, how words came to have the connotations they do now, ways we can combat negative uses, etc.

Several of the teachers Gribben spoke to said they felt they couldn't teach Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer in the 21st century classroom.  Why?  Is it because today's children have been raised to believe that anything that doesn't fit the politically correct social mold we've created is offensive?  I find that ironic because these are the same kids who will call each other "slut," "whore," and "fag" without any thought.  I hear children and adult alike using the phrase, "That's gay." as a substitute for "That's stupid."  Why isn't anyone making a bigger deal about that?  Homosexuals have feelings too, and they do take offense when someone synonymously interchanges homosexuality with stupidity.  I used to be one of those kids who inappropriately used the word gay until my freshman year of college when a classmate, who later became one of my best friends, explained how offensive it was to him when I negatively connotated his lifestyle.  From that day on I never used gay to mean stupid.  All it took was someone pointing out how my words affect other people for me to change my ways.  I am not saying it's going to be the same way for everyone, but talking about it will help.  In 125 years are people going to change gay in every book?  By changing nigger to slave in Mark Twain's novels, we are giving the n-word more power, reinforcing its negative meanings.  If we ever want to progress as a nation we need to look at our history and question it, not rewrite it.

There's No Hole in My Bucket

I had a lot of time on my hands over break.  Instead of doing something productive like research for my thesis, I used this time to think.  About what may you ask?  Well, I am an indiscriminate thinker.  I'll think about whatever pops into my head.  Sometimes I will spend hours thinking about the most random things.  I once spent 30 minutes contemplating the purpose of doors.  I know that sounds like crazy talk because doors are here to create barriers, provide protection, serve as a fortress from your crazy aunts who will not leave you alone.  However, doors are not treated the same in all cultures.  In German households, as I learned in my one semester of German my sophomore year of college, most doors stay locked throughout the day and are only unlocked when someone needs to enter the room.  Here in America, that is not the case, at least from my experience.  For goodness sakes, the majority of people in my hometown keep their doors unlocked at night!  However, I digress.  As of late I've been thinking about traditions, the history and future of publishing, the art of comedy, domesticity, and much to my chagrin, my future.  The most recent thing on my mind is bucket lists.  I've never actually written out my bucket list and I think it might be beneficial for me to have a written record of what I'd like to accomplish before my time on the earth expires.  It may be helpful for forming my future plans.  Here are ten things unrelated to my career on my bucket list.

1. Go cage diving with sharks -- I have always loved Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, and ever since I first saw people cage diving on TV when I was five I have wanted to do so as well.  I am scared of a lot of things, but sharks is not one of those things.  This is probably the most adventurous thing on my bucket list.
2. Host SNL -- Sketch comedy, especially SNL, has been an important part of my life.  I cannot think of anything that would be more fun that spending a week with SNL cast and crew and being a part of a show.  I just have to do something that makes me famous and moderately influential.
3. Meet Ina Garten and host a dinner party with her. -- Ina Garten is my hero!  She's done so many amazing things, working for Presidents Ford and Carter, owning her own business and expanding it, her cookbook series, cooking show on Food Network, being a columnist in several magazines, and having what appears to be a wonderful marriage.  She isn't a classically trained chef, but her recipes and menus are phenomenal!  I could watch her show all day. Ina Garten is truly an inspiration to me.
4. Write a memoir. -I don't really care if it gets published, but I would like the hilarious stories that stem from the awkward situations I get myself into recorded in some form or fashion so my progeny may tell their friends of my awesome shenanigans.
5. Become a polyglot -- I plan to become fluent in French, German, and Italian.
6. Go on a cross country road trip -- I've never participated in a leisurely cross country road trip, stopping to see things like "The World's Largest Popcorn Ball."  I think this would be a good thing to do while in my 20s.  The stories and photos from this trip will be great fodder for my memoir.
7. Ice skate at Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve -- This is another thing I've wanted to do since I was a kid.  
8.  Meet Joyce DiDonato -- She is a phenomenal artist, truly inspiring.  She seems so down to earth and honestly cares about the future generations of opera singers.  If you get the chance, check out her vlogs in youtube at TheYankeediva.  Everyone can learn a thing or two from here, even if you aren't into opera.
9. Have a joke published on a Laffy Taffy wrapper -- Yes, I realize that I should have done something to cross this one off my list when I was 10.  However, I never got around to it.  So I guess I should start now.
10. Plant a tree with Al Gore -- I absolutely adore Al Gore!  I love the environment.  Why not combine the two and plant a tree for the environment with Mr. Inconvenient Truth himself?

Some of these things are silly, some are dangerous, but they're what I want to do before the proverbial curtain closes on the final act of my life.

Until next time,
Caro

A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action, Please

A college friend of mine, Carl, is a second year teacher at a high school in Eastern Iowa.  Over the past couple years we've had several conversations about the state of arts and general education.  We have come to the conclusion the potential is there, but nothing is being done.  Carl recently wrote a blog entry about the continuous conversation about the need for education reform in the State of Iowa and how often the blame of poor performing students is placed upon the shoulders of the educators.  Carl goes on to outline the top four obstacles teachers face: quality professional development, the evolution of academic priority, parents and public misconceptions.  As a young, enthusiastic educator trying to make a difference in the lives of his students, Carl has shed a new light of these issues.

I wholeheartedly agree with Carl's assessment and can only  hope and pray my tax dollars are being spent effectively to positively reform Iowa's education system.  For too long people have been complaining about the current system and giving suggestions as to make it better.  However, that doesn't do anyone any good until we actually DO something about it.  What does knowing the test teach us?  Absolutely nothing beyond the fact that our students have the capability to be mindless drones that can regurgitate force-fed facts.  What happened to education being about the experience?  Why are good grades a given, something a student deserves, rather than an award?  The grade inflation rate is outrageous!  Shouldn't what a student learned be more important than the overall grade earned in a class.  In my personal academic career, spanning from high school to graduate school, I have taken many classes where I received an A for my final grade and felt like I didn't learn anything.  However, on the flip-side, I've taken classes where I worked very hard to earn a B. Those B's are so much more important to be because I was challenged and felt I actually learned something.

Why does the whole of the fault of poor academic performance of students have to be placed on the shoulders of teachers?  As Carl points out in his post, parents are a major influence on the performances of their children.  This extends far beyond the academic arena.  When parents are supportive and involved in the lives of their children, they perform better.  They become contributing members of society.  Why? Because their parents were a good example.  If parents took the time to be a part of the lives of their children and teach them positive social values and good work ethic, perhaps our educators will be more successful in their teaching.  It is not fair to expect our grossly overworked and underpaid educators to be parents by proxy AND teach our children algebraic equations.  This is a challenge to all parents out there:  ask your child what he or she learned in school today, ask if they helped anyone, ask if they met anyone new.  Engage with your child.  Please do not expect television to raise your children.  Trust me, the Kardashians are far from the best example your children need.  Please inspire your child to aspire to be more than a contestant on the Bachelor in 2020.  Try to keep your kids in school and positively reinforce their good behavior.  At the least tell them you love them.  Seriously, all these daddy issues are guaranteeing us an army of strippers for generations to come.

I realize there are plenty of teachers out there who are in the field because it's a safer bet - benefits are good, guaranteed retirement. But there are so many more teachers who actually care.  Why not install some sort of reward system based on student evaluations within middle and high schools.  If nothing else, it's another way to get students to write.  I understand these students can't vote yet, but they do have opinions.  Maybe this is idealist in me, but I think allowing students to actively shape their education would empower them to take ownership of it.  Sometimes all it takes is to ask a student what they think to get them involved.  Plus the evaluations may help teachers who aren't effectively reaching their students to adapt their methods.

I understand that education reform is going to take a lot more money, time and effort than we really want to put it.  However, we must remember the age old adage, "You reap what you sow."  We need to invest in our future today.  Start small.  Parents pay attention to your children; encourage them to do their best and learn something.  Please, teach your children manners and positive social behaviors.  Teachers, keep up the good work.  Administrators, pay communicate with your teachers and with the parents in your district.  State Legislators, don't aim for perfection, aim for what is realistic. Small, measurable and achievable goals are a good idea.  Don't set yourselves up for failure.  It doesn't make you look good.  Community members, please act like you're in a community; take an interest in the schools and the education of your future community leaders.  We want to cultivate a flourishing garden of educated global citizens, but that takes time, effort, and money.  Please invest.