Robert L. Lynch

Spring has brought a number of devastating natural disasters to our nation—from hundreds of tornadoes across the South in late April to the current flooding of the Mississippi Delta. Americans for the Arts board and staff ask that you keep your effected colleagues in your thoughts.

In our newest podcast, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts Robert L. Lynch addresses these disasters and steps you can take to prepare your organization and community.

You can help your colleagues today by supporting the Red Cross, but you can also help your community by taking what steps you can to prepare for crises that could affect your organization.

Two useful websites offer you both advice and guidance on crisis and disasters that may arise: ArtsReady and CERF+.

If you have tips or advice for handling a crisis or would like to share your thoughts with those affected by recent events, please post them below.

Last fall, 30 top-level decision makers and thought leaders from government, business, education, and the arts gathered at the Sundance Resort and Preserve for the Fifth Annual Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Roundtable, to discuss this year’s theme – The Role of the Arts in Educating America for Great Leadership and Economic Strength.

Their conclusions are profiled in a new report issued this week by Americans for the Arts that calls for individuals across the public and private sector to recognize the arts as the transformational tools they are for making schools stronger and students more successful.

The recommendations offer insights from this cross-sector group on how we can better work together to ensure policies and practices are in place to increase arts in our schools.

The business and public policy communities are building consensus that if the nation is to succeed, an education steeped in the 4 “C’s” (Creativity, Collaboration, Communication and Critical Thinking) is not a luxury, but a necessity.  

Missing from the consensus however, is the connection between the acquisition of these skills and the study and practice of the arts in schools.

The 2010 National Arts Policy Roundtable convening examined how to more effectively draw this connection so leaders in business and government, as well as the general public, could be motivated to support the arts in the education reform movement as a critical tool to our national success.

The consensus was forged by a diverse group of individual leaders and representatives from organizations and agencies, including The Conference Board, the U.S. Department of Education, and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, along with the American Express Foundation, YoungArts, and the CAA (Creative Arts Agency) Foundation.

The recommendations arrive at an important time for arts education advocates as Congress considers education reforms later this year. The report provides additional ammunition for arguments as to why the arts must be part of our nation’s priorities in education.

Recommendations were developed in four areas:

(1) engaging in more effective messaging to highlight that the arts aren’t only for aspiring artists, but are necessary to develop critical 21st century skills and for motivating students to achieve;

(2) calling for new research that examines how the arts prepare creative and innovative thinkers and compares the United States to other countries in its commitment to developing globally competitive workers;

(3) strengthening strategic alliances among business and philanthropic leaders alongside proponents of arts education in concerted efforts to influence positive change in schools, and;

(4) identifying key opportunities to reform federal public policy that supports the arts in education down the state-to-local pipeline.

The need for increased federal research cited in the National Arts Policy Roundtable recommendations will be answered, in part, by two new federal studies being released this month:

•    the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics study on the national status and condition of arts education in schools throughout the United States (released May 2 – the full report is due by the end of 2011), and;

•     “Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools” by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities which has identified successful arts education models and best practices across the country (available from PCAH on May 6).

For more information, download/play the podcast at the top of the page to hear Americans for the Arts President & CEO Bob Lynch discuss the work of the National Arts Policy Roundtable.

For more information on the National Arts Policy Roundtable, visit our webpage.

*For an update to this story – and the latest about all 3 arts education reports, visit this post.

This is the final Leo Berk post describing his experiences as an embedded artist with King County (WA) Bridge Division.

Have you heard the one about the biologist, geologist, engineer, and artist who hiked up a relic stream bed together?

I hadn’t either until last November when I headed to the Money Creek Bridge with King County Roads’ Erick Thompson (biologist), Julia Turney (geologist), and Rich Hovde (engineer).

These three were on their way to the Skykomish area to visit this bridge in order to solve a complicated problem together.

Put simply, bridges are made to stay put, and creeks, by nature, don’t.  

When the Money Creek Bridge was built, in the 1950s, its two arches spanned over two sections of the creek. Since then, Money Creek has significantly changed its path in the vicinity of the bridge three times.

Originally, the creek split its water through both of the bridge’s openings. Currently, almost all of the water spills through one side causing the bridge footing to be undermined.

Bridge folk call this “scour,” and if they let it continue, the bridge will ultimately fail.

There are lots of ways to fix this problem, but cost and environmental concerns narrow the list quickly.

A typical quick fix is to add some large boulders called riprap (which is currently my favorite Bridge Unit glossary term) around the bridge footings to prevent the water from taking its toll.

However, in this case, everyone agreed that Money Creek’s volume and velocity would make this a very temporary fix. As an added concern to this proposed fix, the addition of riprap to one side might cause water to be forced to the center pier and scour that area.

Another thought was to divert water through the now dried up side of the bridge. Easy to do: drive some big excavators down to the creek’s edge and dig a trench for the water to follow.

Fortunately for the environment, however, there are regulators who frown on any work that will disturb habitat for fish and plants.

Erick Thompson is the guy who gets the permits from the state environmental regulators, ensuring that engineering problems like this can be resolved with the environmental impacts in mind.

Whatever work does happen for the Money Creek Bridge, there will have to be environmental mitigation work, too, to lessen the impact of the intervention. This works in a similar way as carbon offsets—by planting trees in Africa, you offset the impact of your transatlantic flight. By creating salmon spawning pools and planting native species in the area of the work, Erick and the County are able to offset some of the impact to the creek.

While we drove to the bridge at dawn that morning, with the temperature in the teens, the crew thought they knew what the answer to this bridge question would be.

But once we arrived and reviewed the site, nobody had a clear solution. They were trying to balance cost, environmental impact, and the possibility of unintended consequences.

Finally, as we hiked up a relic stream bed where the creek had flowed at the time of the original bridge-building, the idea of diverting some of the current waters into this channel came to the fore – it would solve many of the bridge’s problems.

Of course, an idea like this would require more study back at the office where, fortunately, the temperature is kept in the high 60s.

*To read more about Leo’s experiences, visit 4Culture.org.

In 2009, Public Art 4culture commissioned artist Leo Berk to develop a public art ‘kit of parts’ for short span bridges in King County, WA.

Berk worked collaboratively with the King County Bridge Unit to understand the function of short span bridges and explore design possibilities for bridge elements.

His residency included an extended period of learning the culture of the Bridge Unit, work methods and safety conventions as well as time spent in the field with engineers, ecologists, and archeologists.

In design phase, Berk worked with Bridge Unit staff to identify materials and bridge elements that would be feasible to use and easy to install.  

His final artwork uses off-the-shelf road safety material as a printing surface, reproducing photographic images that the artist took underneath bridges throughout the county. Artwork will be printed by the King County sign shop and installed by bridge contractors. z

The original estimate of prospective bridges was 57 short span bridges up to 60 feet long, to be implemented over 19 years. Since Berk’s design has been so well received by the Bridge Unit, bridges up to 100 feet have been included for consideration.z

The artist is currently creating the design handbook that will be used to source short span bridge artwork. Engineers will be able to choose from a menu of elements and designs for each project.z

Over the course of the residency Leo Berk posted to the 4culture blog about his experiences in the Bridge Unit and in the field. You’ll find three of those blogs plus posted throughout the week during the Blog Salon.

Earlier today, the Obama Administration released its Fiscal Year 2012 budget proposal. Included in the billions of dollars and thousands of programs, were lower allocations for both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The two vital endowments for arts and culture organizations nationwide were both cut by $21 million when compared with the $167 million that Congress appropriated for FY 2010. In today’s podcast, Americans for the Arts President and CEO Robert Lynch discusses the impact that this budget could have on arts organizations at every level. To view Bob’s full statement, visit our news section.

Vice President of Government and Public Affairs Nina Ozlu Tunceli has recorded a podcast detailing the possibilities for federal action on funding for the arts in the upcoming week. On the short recording, Ozlu Tunceli explains the confusing budget process we currently find ourselves in and calls arts advocates into action to help make sure funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and other essential arts institutions and mechanisms remains in place for 2011 and beyond.

Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts recently launched an innovative Early Childhood STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Learning Through the Arts initiative that builds upon its 30-year history developing and delivering early childhood arts education programs.

In this podcast, Arts Education Program Manager Tim Mikulski interviews Wolf Trap Foundation Senior Director of Education Mimi Flaherty Willis about the program.

To find out more about this initiative, you can visit the Wolf Trap website or you can read a brief article about one teaching artist’s experience in teaching math through the arts on WashingtonPost.com.

Nina Ozlu Tunceli

It’s hard to believe that the 2010 elections were 20 days ago today.  For those of us who work in politics the day is akin to a holiday but just because the elections our over it doesn’t mean our work is finished – in fact we have a lot ahead of us.  Now is the time when we sit down and figure out what the results from the ballot box mean for the arts and arts education.

Political junkies aren’t the only ones who should care about the election results though.  What happened on November 2, 2010 will have a far reaching impact on arts and arts education organizations throughout the country.

Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Chief Counsel of Government and Public Affairs at Americans for the Arts and Executive Director of the Arts Action Fund, was kind enough to take a few moments to share her greatest insights from the 2010 election with me.  I encourage you to take a few moments to listen – you might find yourself caring about politics more than you think.

For members of Americans for the Arts, check out the Post-Election Impact Webinar from November 18.  You can also check out the 2010 Congressional Arts Report Card to find out how legislators voted for the arts this year.

Here’s the second half of an interview between Alie Wickham and Mike Gagliardo, the ambassadors for the two green paper topics: Arts in Healthcare and Strings. Alie and Mike discuss how the green papers have approached a vision of the future.

The first half of their interview can be found here.

Check out this first part of an interview between Alie Wickham and Mike Gagliardo, the ambassadors for the two green paper topics: Arts in Healthcare and Strings. Alie and Mike discuss arts advocacy as it relates to the arts and also touch on the state of the economy and healthcare reform.  In next week’s conclusion of the interview, they will discuss how the green papers have approached a vision of the future.

In Part II of our conversation, Jeanne Sakamoto, Senior Program Officer at the James Irvine Foundation, and Marc Vogl, Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, speak about leadership development in California and how their two foundations have partnered to help support the next generation of arts leaders.  This is a follow-up to the recent blog salon, New Strategies to Support Next Generation Leaders.

Jeanne Sakamoto, Senior Program Officer at the James Irvine Foundation, and Marc Vogl, Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, speak about leadership development in California and how their two foundations have partnered to help support the next generation of arts leaders.  This is a follow-up to the recent blog salon, New Strategies to Support Next Generation Leaders.  In Part I of this podcast, Jeanne and Marc expand on some of the themes discussed in this salon.  Stay tuned this week for Part II.

Bob Lynch, President and CEO of Americans for the Arts, talks with Jamie Boese about what makes the Green Paper initiative so revolutionary. Both Jamie and Bob invite our readers and listeners to let their voices be heard as we plan for the future of the arts field and different art disciplines.

Green Paper topics and partners can be found here.

Bob Lynch, President & CEO of Americans for the Arts, discusses the upcoming National Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. on April 12-13, and talks about memories from past events.

For more information on National Arts Advocacy Day click here.  And you can also find video highlights from last year’s event, including Josh Groban and Wynton Marsalis, on this page.

We ask that you post your favorite Arts Advocacy Day memory below!

Bob Lynch, President & CEO of Americans for the Arts, discusses the slippage in current private sector giving and addresses the private sector giving blog salon taking place on ARTSblog from March 8-12.

Bob also makes specific references to blog posts by Janet Brown, Julie Muraco, and Mark Brewer and urges visitors to catch up on the the blog posts from the salon.

To find the Salon blog posts in one place, use the Salon March 10 tag.