During this episode of Why Change? co-hosts Madeleine and Jeff discuss their change of personal and professional seasons, including Madeleine’s cross-sector work. Jeff shares his interview with Lisa Donovan which covers a broad array of topics from arts integration to community development, network building, and even professional learning. Madeleine and Jeff discuss the asset-based approaches of cross-sector work, the strength of practitioners at the intersections, and inherent knowledge of rural communities.
In this episode you’ll learn:
The expansive role of the arts intersecting with numerous sectors of community life;
How arts education and arts management practices lead the way in cross-sector dialogues; and
The multitude of ways cultural practitioners can advance dialogues about social change through multi-sector advocacy.
Check out some of the things mentioned during this podcast, including:
Voices from the field: Teachers’ views on the relevance of arts integration
Teacher as Curator: Formative Assessment and Arts-Based Strategies
Leveraging Change—Increasing Access to Arts Education in Rural Areas
The Berkshire County Blueprint for Arts Integration and Education
ABOUT LISA DONOVAN
Lisa Donovan, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Fine and Performing Arts Department at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. A theater artist, educator, administrator and researcher. Before joining MCLA Lisa was the Director of the Creative Arts in Learning Division at Lesley University. She has a broad range of experience in a variety of arts organizations including: Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Berkshire Opera Company, Barrington Stage Company, University of Massachusetts Department of Theater, as well as Boston University's Theater, Visual Arts, and Tanglewood Institutes. She was formerly the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts Education, has served as co-principal investigator of a research project funded by the Ford Foundation that focused on teachers' perspectives on the relevance of arts integration. Lisa has taught internationally in Japan and Israel, and throughout the United States. She is co-editor of a new book series on arts integration published by Shell Education including Integrating the Arts Across the Content Areas (2012), Strategies to Integrate the Arts in Mathematics (2013) and Strategies to Integrate the Arts in English Language Arts (2013)
This episode was produced by Jeff M. Poulin. The artwork is by Bridget Woodbury. The audio is edited by Katie Rainey. This podcasts’ theme music is by Distant Cousins. For more information on this episode and Creative Generation please visit the episode’s webpage and follow us on social media @Campaign4GenC
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Jeff M. Poulin 00:02
This is why change the podcast for Creative Generation. We are your hosts. I'm Jeff. Oh, Hola. Hola, soy Carla. It's Rachel here. What's good, y'all. I'm Ashraf.
Madeleine McGirk 00:12
And I'm Madeline.
Jeff M. Poulin 00:14
Why change is a podcast that brings listeners around the globe to learn how arts, culture and creativity, especially as applied by young people can change the world, one community at a time. You're invited each week to learn and laugh while exploring the question. Why change? Alright, let's get started. Welcome to this episode of The Why change podcast Jeff here with my co host, Madeleine McGirk. How are you, Madeleine?
Madeleine McGirk 00:45
Hello, I'm good. I'm good. I am here in Edinburgh, on a very, very cold, Scottish wintry Friday. So it's nice to be doing something cheerful. How about you? How
Jeff M. Poulin 00:57
are you? Absolutely. I'm with you. We had our first snow up in Maine in the United States yesterday. But really kind of curious, because I actually took the dog for a walk on the beach in the morning, and it was beautiful. And on the way home, the flakes started falling. So it's certainly that in between time, still not properly winter, but certainly heading in that direction. But as a person who grew up in that climate, I am actually thrilled for the winter, it's nice to hunker down and really enjoy it. And it's, you know, that time of sort of end of year, you know, harnessing the energy of concluding projects, and putting to bed ideas and planting those seeds that will come up in the spring. So that's sort of a trend for many of my projects right now, both with Creative Generation and otherwise, and, and it's exciting, even here on the podcast, a lot of the ideas that are coming out of our conversations lately, I feel like are seeds that that will will be reaped in the new year. How about you what's going on? What's the news in your life,
Madeleine McGirk 02:06
you know, there's so much going on to snow. So kind of like you towards the end of the year with that with attack, we kind of do a yearly Roundup, right. And we look back at what had happened this year, what's been achieved. And we had all that energy coming out of ITAC six, which was sort of the tail end of last year, feeding into this year, and all of the different think tanks and even engagement and impact reports and commission projects and innovators. And we kind of wrap up everything that happened and what went on. And it's like the loveliest feeling to see all written out in front of you and go, Oh, that's what I've been busy to. Because then someone goes to me, what were your last Tuesday? What were you up to? And I'm like, I have no idea. But I know I was busy. And I know I was. And I could not name why. And so seeing it laid out you're like, that's why a lot has happened. Lots gotten achieved and moved forward. And, and all of that. Oh, and actually I've been away on my travels. I was in Copenhagen who meeting and then I was in Stockholm at the inner development goals Summit. So yeah, there's been lots of nice reviving moments and conversations in the last few months for
Jeff M. Poulin 03:17
me. Well, that's absolutely perfect and kind of tees up the conversation for today, which is an interview that I did with a long standing colleague of mine named Dr. Lisa Donovan, who is a professor of arts management and really works really broadly in the arts, education and community development spaces at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and a lot of her work kind of fits that around broad cross sector engagement and a ton of stuff I you know, I found in this conversation and doing my brushing up on her sort of illustrious career, and accomplishments, you know, it was that moment that you're just talking about, like seeing it all on paper like wow, like this is tremendous. The impact that that Lisa, as a leader has had is really great. So I'm thrilled to share it with you. And I'm curious about your thoughts because of this overlap and some of the work you're doing some of the work that she's done. So why don't we give it a listen and we'll come back and discuss on the flip side. Great. Welcome, Lisa, I am I'm thrilled to have you on the Why change podcast for our listeners. We connected some many years ago in what feels like a different lifetime with everything that's transpired. But recently, we've had some intersections and some significant overlap in our work related to various things like arts integration and regional network development, and even arts based research. So I'm excited to have you on the podcast. asked and to dive into these topics to understand a little bit more about you as a change maker who's driving these different dialogues in different segments of your work. So welcome to the podcast.
Lisa Donovan 05:12
Thank you so much, Jeff. I'm really excited to reconnect and to be here.
Jeff M. Poulin 05:18
Well, so to begin, why don't you share your come up story, if you will. It's something I've heard a little bit about. But I think it'll be really interesting to understand the bit about you as a person, how did you get into the arts? What about education? What was your path to being a professor today?
Lisa Donovan 05:37
Oh, my goodness. Well, it's a little bit of a long story, but let me see if I can kind of connect the dots. When I was growing up, I wanted to be an actress. And I just knew that that's where my heart was. And as a kid, I would create performances in my living room. I would write the show I would produce it, I would act in it. And I would charge my parents to come. And I also had, so I had the artistic side. And I also had the arts management side as I look back, you know, I would, they wouldn't be charged to come in, I would have rice krispies snacks. I have a little club under our stairs. That was all about the arts. And when I was in high school, getting ready to go to college, my father said, you know, honey, you're really talented, but you should have something to fall back on. And so listen to him and I did not major in the arts, although I did a lot of theater in college. And I took a lot of theater classes, but when I graduated with a psychology degree, so interestingly, it took me a while to get back to the roots of of my passion. I did a stint with working at a group home in Bennington, Vermont, and then I ended up at Boston University, where I got my master's in communication and, and was in residence life. And when I realized I was really pining for the arts, I moved into arts management. And I ended up in the Berkshires, and I've worked with Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival doing research around what brings people to dance. I ran the BU theater and Visual Arts Institute as an assistant director and the Tanglewood Institute, which brought me to the Berkshires and I also was the first education director for Barrington stage company. So I had a lot of different modalities that I was working across, always as an arts administrator, and still felt like something was missing for me. So I ended up at UMass Amherst, the theatre department as the business manager, and I was next to the thing I loved by not doing the thing I loved. And so I had a huge aha that I needed to make another shift. And I ended up doing it in that role. I ended up building a partnership program for arts for the arts, and the theatre department in Springfield Public Schools. I ran a lecture workshop series, but where a pivotal turning point for me was one of the professor's there Hurley Erdman invited me to co teach a class and I taught a class in theater for social change. And then I went on to teach the beginning techniques and performance class. And what I realized is that, that I love teaching that for me, the creative process, actually lives in teaching in through and with the arts. And in that moment, I realized I needed to move on and get a doctorate. So I applied to Lesley University, and started to teach in there, integrating the arts program, which is a master's program that was offered across the country, and eventually ended up being the director for creative arts and learning, which allowed me to work with educators across the country, and also internationally. And I loved that job, loved the work, really grounded my research and brought the pieces together for me. But I have two boys and they were moving into their teen years. And I thought, you know, I need to be a little closer to home and not driving across the state. So I ended up here at NCLA, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. And interestingly, the position is focused on arts management. And so that really has developed for me that the system's thinking now combined with my passion for for arts integration. And here I've been doing a lot of regional work in the arts.
Jeff M. Poulin 09:33
I you know, I love everything about that store. I think I also put on performances for my family. I know I certainly was conned into it by my older sister, which is my path into the dance studio at two and a half years old. But you know, one thing I want to underscore from what you just said was a term that you sort of flew through because I think you must say it all the time, which was in through and with the arts and just to underscore for that, because I think that, for me, at least, is a really great summary of your work because what I know of your work, and I think anyone who like Google's Your name will very quickly find is your many books that are focused on arts integration, volumes that you've edited and pieces that you've written. And, you know, I've adopted a really broad definition of arts integration in my work thinking about not only, you know, educational subject matter, but also community development, and civic and social engagement and things of that nature. And so, I'm interested, what your perspective is about sort of this ever evolving definition of arts integration, perhaps from when you sort of started back, you know, in your time in higher ed, I love working in, you know, in community life and the institution and things like that, to what you're doing now around that rural community development and network building. I'm curious about that through line of arts integration for you.
Lisa Donovan 11:00
Yeah, well, I think, you know, one of the things I've realized is that there's a continuum of how people think about integrating the arts into their work. And when I was at Lesley, we would, you know, we worked a lot with with educators, although there's also a program around community arts. So really working with with the entire arts education workforce, and I think it means different things to different stakeholders. But we would, I would go to conferences, and I would talk about arts integration and some of the the impacts that we were seeing, as teachers brought the work forward. And we were really excited about it. But during the conference presentations, we would often get the comment. Well, this is great, you got great stories about all kinds of different approaches towards integration. But do you have the data. And we didn't have the data at that time. And so we, we really wanted to do a deep dive and get the research and we got a grant from the Ford Foundation. And we took that funding, and we went to our educators that had been through this two year intensive program. And we got the data, we did classroom observations, we did focus groups, we did surveys. And as part of that we asked them the relevance of arts integration, how they were applying it, and what their understanding of it was. And we found, you know, everything that we had been hearing came out in the data. But there were also different things that were happening. And this is slightly different than I think what you're asking, but I wanted to mention it anyway. Often teachers would say we, in the survey, we had about 60% of the teachers say that they were on the cusp of leaving the field until they entered into this master's program. And we were, you know, in addition to this work being valuable for students, it actually was really useful for teachers in that it brought them back to the reason that they came to teaching in the first place. So there was this whole aspect of the rejuvenation of and retention of teachers that came forward. So I thought that we then would see a lot of change, because hey, we have the research on how people are applying arts integration. But it didn't really change things in the way that I had hoped. And that's what led to the book series. And so in the books, we really tried to explore what the arts can can look like across the curriculum, we offered flexible strategies. And this was a suite of five books that I co edited, and co authored, co edited the series and co authored three of the books. And and we sell education teacher created materials. And interestingly, this is where we started to see change, where when practitioners started to apply the strategies in their classroom, then students would get all excited and start to talk to each other, and teachers began to collaborate. And that created school change, and then district change and conference presentations, etc. So so it was a big aha to me to see, if you do the research. We have lots of research about the impact of the arts, but it's really practitioners that can can actually push the needle for change.
Jeff M. Poulin 14:26
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that's one of my big sticking points. And I've been on the mic at one too many occasions to ever really deny this. But I've been known to say that it's actually part of our professional responsibility as educators and as those who are closest to the work to be the advocates of the work because the decision makers often don't have the perspective that we have and they need to hear the on the ground stories. It's not that anyone has anything against you know, the arts is part of education. but they just don't know how to set up the circumstances for it to thrive. And I would say that, like the point that you're making, we have to, to come at that in the collaborative, constructive way to progress the fields. So, I know you've been doing that in a particularly interesting context in rural communities and in central in Western Massachusetts. So first, can you give us a little bit of an overview of the the region that you're in, because it's kind of a unique one with lots of cultural assets, but also very disparate communities. And talk about the the energy that's been growing in the region of building a network between cultural and education, and all of the space in between?
Lisa Donovan 15:43
Sure, so when I arrived at NCLA, it's actually right in my backyard. So even during my stint at Lesley, I was always had lived in Western Massachusetts. And the Berkshire County is about as West as you can go. It's a 946 square mile region. It has, you know, huge geographic spread. And we have North County, central County and South County. And what's fascinating about this rural area is that in addition to being rural, we have this amazing plethora of arts and culture organizations, over 50 High Caliber arts organizations that are known regionally, nationally, internationally. And so it's a very unique area spectacularly beautiful. And we also have for institutions of higher education. And the first, you know, I wanted to think about how, how could I come back to the work that I was doing in arts education, and what would be different in rural areas. So we started with some research, we received a National Endowment for the Arts Collective Impact grant. And I worked with a colleague, Marlon Brown, to, to research rural areas, and leveraging change in arts education. And we interviewed 14 arts education experts across the country, and distilled some of their key ideas. And what we found was that every rural area tends to share the same challenges. So often, there's poverty, lack of access to financial resources, lack of broadband. All these things that are obstacles for rural areas. But the promising practices, the things that really worked in bolstering arts education, always took root by paying attention to the unique assets of a region. So you may be in a rural region that doesn't have arts and culture, like we have it, but you have something. And so taking the time to say, Yes, we all have these shared challenges. But what makes us unique. So we took that research that mapped the challenges and these promising practices, and we began to activate them. So some of the promising practices included things like networks, so in rural areas, every interview, we talked about the power of relationship networks, that you can activate the people that you know, the relationships that you have, in really interesting ways. Because often you you play many roles. So I'm in a particular area. So when I think about my dad, he was a general contractor, by day, but by night, he was a judge, he was the head of the Board of Education, he was the head of the fire department at one point and the head of the cemetery board at one point, and the list goes on. And so he could pick up the phone and activate all these other networks with a call. And we also have unique assets in rural areas. And so some you're taking stock of what you have, and then mapping your your promising practices. Really Can, can grow the work. So we took that research, we had a think tank that included just 25 people that were representatives across sectors, and we ask them in this county, what are the issues that are most important for us to take a look at and how might art integration in particular, be a lever for change? And from that conversation, we we began to create a common agenda that we call the blueprint for arts integration and arts education. And some of the the goals became things like engaging our local community, our year round community. There has been research done by our Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation that suggested that or that found that many of our year round communities, particularly our youth commune These are the immigrant community. Communities of Color often feel like the arts are not for them, that, that they're everything's sort of designed for tourists. So we, we wanted to pay attention to that. And we thought we could address that through arts education, there was a need for more pro social youth opportunities. And we thought arts education could play a role there. And there was a call for more career readiness opportunities in the arts, and with all of our arts and culture organizations, we knew we could could work there. So in those three areas of need, we created a series of goals and objectives and have been moving the needle on on that ever since.
Jeff M. Poulin 20:41
That's incredible work. And I think that, you know, that report that was done, you know, alongside the NDA was something that certainly really interested me, because working at the time, at the federal level, you know, there's something like 13 different definitions of rural or something like that across federal statute. And it largely classifies like the vast majority 80% of the US or something as rural. Yeah. Right. And, and it's really interesting, because I think those commonalities and really those opportunities that you're pointing out to crosswalk between other sectors to really posit arts and cultural and creative learning as a solution is kind of a game changer, because our field often takes on sort of that victim mentality of Oh, the arts are the first thing cut and the arts, you know, are far under resourced, and they're not part of the conversation. They're not at the table, when, in reality, I think you're suggesting that there's tremendous potential for us to be at the table and to be part of the solution. Regardless of of that, the outcome, that desired outcome. And that's something that, you know, in my work, I've talked about a lot like Let's stop talking about raising test scores, let's actually talk about the the long term impact, which is that young people are able to create the solutions to the world that they envision, and move on from the challenges of today, you know, so I wonder, as you look towards the future, what are what are the big opportunities that you see in crosswalking, sort of artistic, cultural and creative learning in schools and communities with the bigger picture items in the impacting families and communities today? Yeah, I
Lisa Donovan 22:22
think, well, the big thing here now for us is, is moving out of our silos and and cross sector work. The idea of arts and.dot.is is so important right now, whether that's Arts and Health, arts, and education, arts, and transportation, arts and agriculture, you know, that the arts can play a role across so many different sectors. And I think we we are bringing so much innovation that that it is the right next step. For us. What it means is, is thinking about how siloed we are and in the arts, you know, we tend to talk to each other in the arts, and how are we bringing in different stakeholders, no matter what we're doing? How are we thinking about our language, so that so that people feel included? Or that they can see the possibilities for the Arts? A lot of our work in the last, I would say eight years has really been around alignment. And so thinking like a region, thinking about what are the unique assets? What are the unique issues of this area? And how do we work together within our own sphere of influence, and really kind of connecting the dots. And now that we've done so much work with that we created a network that didn't exist before, called the Berkshire Cultural Asset network, or B can and this network is really inviting arts education and community engagement staff, from our local cultural organizations to come together and think about issues. And you know, before the pandemic, a lot of the work was on how do we collaborate more effectively move out of our silos? During the pandemic, it was how do you get our How do you get our education online? And then even how do we connect with parents, knowing you know, learning was happening at home? And now coming out of the pandemic? A lot of it has been focused on that community engagement piece. How do we listen to our communities in different ways? How do we foster a sense of belonging in through and with the arts. So it's been interesting to watch this network that's been really needed, evolve and change depending on on what's happening in the county. So now, I feel like we have all of that alignment. And so really, we're now focused on how do we co create and actually create these solutions.
Jeff M. Poulin 24:47
That's tremendous. And I think that there's certainly a trend. I mean, if I put on my future forecasting hat, that's the phenomenon that you're describing in the Berkshire County is happening in a lot of counties, a lot of cities, a lot of municipalities across the nation and really looking at that intersection with other elements and D siloing. Even. Just last year, I had a group of students in Washington DC, and it was someone who's so excited about the role of the arts and transportation, which looks like that a specific, unique intersection. And I certainly think that is the way that we're going. And I often think of our field as being the the subsection of our field, excuse me, arts education as a subsection of culture, you know, that is really ahead of a lot of other segments in finding those, those intersections. But I want to actually make a really hard conversational pivot here. Because I think everything that you've done is tremendous. But there's an element that hasn't been discussed yet, which is the how the how of how you're doing this, how you're culturally asset mapping how you are driving discourses around teacher professional development, how you are changing pedagogy, and partnerships between education and cultural organizations. And just a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to actually visit your class to talk about arts Yes, research. So I'm curious about how you use the arts as not only the sort of intersectional item, but also as the means of research and learning from your community and influencing the change? How was the art sort of at the core in the how?
Lisa Donovan 26:25
Oh, that's a great question. And I also just want to say that I just, I'd love to having you in class. And I'm amazed at all of the work that you are doing with Artspace research. So at some point, I'd love to interview you in a podcast.
Jeff M. Poulin 26:41
Sure you got it.
Lisa Donovan 26:44
So a couple of ways, I think one way has been, we we received a four year grant from the National Department of Education. And we were able to launch a project called Brainworks, Berkshire regional arts integration network. And this project capitalized on another book that I didn't talk about, but a book that focuses on arts integration assessment as another really needed piece. And it's called teacher as curator with my colleague, Sarah, Andrew Berg. So we took arts integration training, but also gave it a really deep dive into assessment, and worked with our brain works teacher, so 52 teachers across the county, and we did immersive professional development over three years. And we also engaged teachers in in assessment and documentation of their work. As part of that work. We were looking, the work was organized around a research question about rigor in the creative process. So professional development was is one way to sort of to see this work. And certainly teachers are sort of the gift that keeps on giving if they're bringing into the classroom, and with each year a new group of new students. But the research that came out of that we just released about eight months ago. And it's exciting to see teacher voices commenting about what does rigor look like in your classroom? And what happens when you bring the arts into the mix. And almost to a teacher? You know, people talked about how getting to translation and application of creative capacities across disciplines is really the deepest level of rigor. So professional development in arts integration and research are two ways. We also launched a podcast series, really focusing on what are the creative capacities that are developed in arts learning and arts immersion? And how do they map to other sectors? How are they relevant and so right now I'm working alongside my master's students at Lesley University, doing an art space research project, taking those interviews that we have, and analyzing them. And so this week, we just launched an interview with Andy Worbla, who is a manager of a large funder in the area called Milltown Foundation. And Andy is also a renowned bass player. And he talked about being part of an ensemble and the ability to, to not only understand what he's contributing to the group, but being responsive to what's happening in the group. And the way he talks about it is very much like an ecosystem and kind of the sum of the parts are greater, you know. And so that's a skill, that ability to sort of see the forest and the trees at the same time, and that's important in other sectors. So, I'm bringing that out analyzing the data in traditional ways, but I'm also going to be exploring it through theatre and through poetry as a as a way to present the findings
Jeff M. Poulin 30:00
That's awesome. And I am so excited that you're doing that. I also think that's sort of the new way of, of our sector doing work of using our greatest assets. I mean, that's the thing. We work in an arts and culture and creativity. And so often we're just like, pining for the validation of other sectors. So we default to their metrics and their tactics and their strategies, when in fact, our artistic cultural and creative selves are our greatest asset. I would say. On that note, you know, I, as we kind of interview folks all around the world on the wide change podcast, exploring this notion of change, we recognize that doing that work and sitting at those intersections, and code switching and hybridizing our work in different ways. That can be real challenging sometimes. So as we bring this conversation to a close, I want to understand more about you as a person, as someone who sustains this practice of driving change, and unpack what it is that I don't know, keeps your ticket. And so I have a few short questions that I'll ask in rapid succession. Okay, so are you ready?
Lisa Donovan 31:20
I am ready.
Jeff M. Poulin 31:22
All right. First, who inspires you?
Lisa Donovan 31:27
Well, I would say, You inspire me. After your your presentation to my class last week, I've been I've been listening to your podcast and doing a deep dive on your website. And, and this follows years of kind of tracking everywhere you've been so I would put you on that list. I would also say Maxine Greene, when I think about, you know, talking about the role of the arts and aesthetic inquiry, I think about the choreographer, Liz Lerman. When I think about research, and I, you know, thinking about that idea of arts and, and how her work really transcends across sectors. Yesterday, we had a county wide Professional Development Day and arts integration. And we spent the day with Michael Bobbitt from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He's completely inspiring visionary does, you know, embodies cross sector work, and focused on change. And then I think some of the new leadership that we see effecting change, I think, you know, Maria Rosario Jackson, at the National Endowment for the Arts and Elizabeth Alexander at the Mellon Foundation. So many people,
Jeff M. Poulin 32:44
what keeps you motivated?
Lisa Donovan 32:48
I would say my students keep me motivated. I feel like the students at UCLA are so inspiring. They have such grit. And, you know, I think they're they, they see the change that needs to happen and bring so much energy to it. And also the master's students at Lesley University. I also my family, I have two boys, and my husband, Rick, and my boys, Alex and Jack. They keep me going.
Jeff M. Poulin 33:23
Where are you most grounded?
Lisa Donovan 33:27
Well, certainly my my family and, and also the arts and culture scene here. I think you know that we have such a beautiful environment. I love to hike. We have a zillion hiking trails and then really year round in the Berkshires. Now there's there's just always something going on with arts and culture. And then of course, the hotbed of activity in the summer. For sure.
Jeff M. Poulin 33:52
How do you stay focused?
Lisa Donovan 33:55
While I'm a little bit of a geek around, around planning, so I have I have this whole ritual that I do in the morning, where I get up early, and I have morning pages that I keep that kind of, I keep a sort of map of of what's going on personally and professionally, professionally. And then and then I always do a little bit of strategic thinking about how to move the big rocks. And I'm committed to doing one small, incremental next step to move one of those big rocks every day.
Jeff M. Poulin 34:34
And lastly, why change?
Lisa Donovan 34:38
Why change? It is so desperately needed. I think lately I've been thinking about how there's so much need in the world and so many gaps that need to be addressed that it can easily become paralyzing. And I think we often think that change is going to happen from, you know, someone up here, whether it's the government or politicians or our administration or whatever. But the reality is that, just like I mentioned earlier with the books that it's the practitioners, it's not the research, always it's the people with power. It's the practitioners that can drive change. And so I think about changes. What can I what do I touch in my daily work? And my daily practice? And what can I change in my own sphere of influence? And I feel like that's, it's a responsibility for each of us to push the envelope in our unique set of circumstances.
Jeff M. Poulin 35:37
Well, Lisa, that's a fantastic note to end on a good call to action, I think, for every listener of this podcast. So on behalf of the team at wide change, net Creative Generation, thank you so much for joining us, and for sharing your your ideas and your insights, your stories, and this really great list of resources that we will drop all of the links in the show notes for people to be able to access. So thank you so much for being with us.
Lisa Donovan 36:00
Thanks for having me, Jeff. It's been a pleasure.
Jeff M. Poulin 36:12
And we're back. Okay, Madeline, first, without anything. I'm curious what your thoughts are, because I know my thoughts about the intersections of your work. So what about Lisa's portfolio of projects and ideas, what resonated with you?
Madeleine McGirk 36:27
Yes, I am a little bit obsessed with her now. And I'm gonna do all the Google. And there were so many points where our work just overlaps or touches on each other. And I think, particularly in relation to valuing practice, and the sort of implementation of research that she said something which I loved, which was, we have the research, but it's practitioners who really moved the needle. And I think that to me, really resonates because I, I know straddle these two spaces where we're always asked for research. But I have all this network of people busily doing things. And I think, noticing queer impact is happening on that spectrum is so useful. But more than that, the cross sector work that she talked about. So much of my time, though, is in non art spaces advocating for the practice of teaching artistry. And it sounds like she is someone who really, really deeply understands the need for arts and climate, Arts and Health arts and all these things she mentioned. And while she's doing it, I'm thinking, let's go to the tab on our website. That's it. You know, that's we just did a whole project about that. And I think it's nice to see people popping up in different spaces, having the same feelings and realizations about what this next frontier is for us. And she seems like someone who is very much on the same kind of page as I am about what that looks like for the future. A, what did you take? I feel like because you're so close to her already, you probably had all kinds of other insights. Yeah.
Jeff M. Poulin 38:07
Well, and it's funny, I think everything that you just said, and, and certainly even in my, my work, and early research about the Creative Generation, all of those intersections, about how young people are applying their creativity to drive change via climate, health, community development, economic development, what have you. I mean, that's what I wrote about back in 2019, at literally the, the convening where we met as where I shared that paper, and it certainly rings a bell. And I think, as I said to Lisa, in the conversation, that's the trend, I feel like that's where organizations or even public agencies that drive discourse around the arts and culture and even creativity are trending is towards this intersectional cross sector approach. Even there was an effort that I was a part of a few years ago, where we made it almost like a drinking game. But the amount of times that people talked about cross sector work because it was such a buzzword, and it was so trendy. But now I feel like people are understanding what that means, what that looks like how it feels, and and seeing the long term benefits of engaging in that work. But what you just said, though, is that you feel like I am close to her work. And even now, having just relocated to be closer to family, I'm like proximately, actually much closer to her where I live two hour drive apart. And that's the bit of the conversation that really resonated with me moving out of a massive metropolitan area, having lived in only cities of 4 million in the last, you know, 15 years of my life moving to a city of 60,000. The conversation about sort of rural development and the reliance on networking and having a healthy, robust ecosystem of mutual reliance, that is there for cross sector and it's work I mean, I found the story that she's You know, talking about her father, and she's like, Well, yeah, he's the judge. And then also, he's the school board leader. And then also he's this, you know, that's the natural manifestation of cross sector work is when people operate in these spaces and in different spaces and change out those hats and bring those perspectives across the silos that are created by society and governance and things like that. So I, that really kind of spoke to me because I think one of the things that we all in the sector and specific to you teaching artists, one things that teaching artists are really good at is changing their language and speaking the language of education, and culture, and whatever else they care about, to bring together what is a mutually reinforcing activity for all of those different sectors to reach common outcomes. And I think that that's where our greatest power is that in some ways, we often focus on major metropolitan areas, like New York City, or London or whatever. But at the end of the day, the best and most prime examples of the arts at the center touching every element of a community life is in these rural communities that have tremendous assets and robust intersectional ecosystems. And that, to me, is just it's a, it's a frame, I want to put that on a sticky note right on my computer. So I remember that all the time.
Madeleine McGirk 41:24
Yeah, I totally agree. This exact same thing struck me of like, what reminder, it is about how sort of urban ified our language can be when we talk about the need for cross sector work and silos and all these things. And how that must sound if you're in a rural community with five different jobs going, Oh, must be nice for you to have fun doing this always and have been and so catch up. Yeah, I think that's such a, that's such an important reminder, because it gets so metropolitan, so quickly, and especially when it's international, it's zoomed out even further from that. And you're dealing with big institutions. And I think that reminder that this is happening already, really, really deeply in loads of teeny little communities who have great practice at this. And they're just not in the international spaces. And that's why we don't know about it. And it's such an important reminder of that.
Jeff M. Poulin 42:22
100%. And, you know, it's interesting, because as I was just after talking to Lisa debriefing and thinking about it, one thing that she and I also talked about, off the microphone was just some of the projects that she had going on. And, you know, some was through the US Department of Education, and some through the National Endowment for the Arts and these kind of interesting funding sources. And it got me thinking actually, about the series of interviews that Ashraf did where he talked to two different funders, be they city agencies, or private foundations or individuals, and the analysis that my colleague Andre Solomon did, and I'll drop this in the show notes. But what's really interesting is the notion that when there's investment in these type of communities, and that investment is not tied to specific deliverables, but it's sort of like general general operating support, or just to do the work. It provides a freedom that allows those people that are doing that work that are the changemakers, like the folks that we put on this podcast to all the time, it gives them the freedom to sit at those tables to do like you've been doing to go to the WH o meeting, or to engage in that international cross sector dialogue or to to share their work on a webinar or a podcast. And having that freedom is so important. And I find that so often that freedom is something that's granted to those who work at foundations or public agencies or institutions of higher education, when in fact, perhaps some of that change is needed. So that it is those practitioners that are closest to the work the teaching artists that are in schools, or the community arts practitioners that are embedded in the police station, or the you know, whatever, to actually bring those perspectives to the four because that's where the real advocacy happens, in my opinion. And I think that, that financial or even time freedom and ability to participate is what could be the game changer in a lot of those circumstances.
Madeleine McGirk 44:26
Oh, till you agree that freedom is exactly what you don't get as a freelance teaching artist or probably freelance most things to be fair, but particularly in the arts, where funding is already super scarce. If you get a few 100 Or a few 1000 pounds, are you really going to spend it going to a two day meeting? Are you going to work in your community on this urgent thing you know about right and so it's like, yeah, I think that's exactly something that needs to be looked at is how do these people get to these spaces? And these tables and I know you and I do a lot of work on that. already, but it's such a prominent persistent thing to tackle that we just haven't quite cracked yet. Yeah.
Jeff M. Poulin 45:06
And I would even add to that list of things that are urgent of, of also using that time and that ability and those finances to take a break and to rest. I mean, that was, that was something that I picked up on from Lisa when she was like, No, I like to go hiking, I'm, you know, I'm grounded in nature. And I was talking to someone else in another episode that's coming out where they were said, I feel most grounded actually in the sea. And you know, you're free of your responsibilities for a moment. And I think that that's another piece of when there are those folks that bridge the gap between, say, their practice in a community and say, their advocacy or systems change or field building or what have you. It's hard, hard work. And that also deserves a break and some restore restoration. And that's really important, too. So I'll just add that to the list. I say that on a day off before a three day weekend, I'm very ready for my own break too.
Madeleine McGirk 45:59
Nice. Well, in terms of pausing to notice nice things was that the first time someone said that you're their inspiration?
Jeff M. Poulin 46:06
You know, it's funny, I think so I'm a podcast. And you know, I'm not great at receiving compliments, especially professionally. So you know, you compliment my cooking or my my mixology at the bar any day. But about my work. I do struggle with that a little bit. So that was great. And it was nice to be sort of lumped in with the the group of people that that Lisa was talking about. But yeah, I think that might have been a first on the white change podcast.
Madeleine McGirk 46:34
Nice. Yeah, that's the kind of compliment, right? You have no idea what to do with but you're like, Oh,
Jeff M. Poulin 46:41
absolutely. Well, you know, it is great, though, because as we come to a close of the season, there's only a few episodes left, you know, I I am in that spot, as I said at the beginning of our conversation, where these ideas, and even some of the reports and the big notions that are coming out of them are so inspiring to me and sort of planting the seeds that I I think, in the vein of you know, Thanksgiving coming up here in the United States, I'm very thankful for the opportunity just to have these conversations, because I do find inspiration and everyone that we talked to, and it, it kind of gives me that little pep in my step to do the next big hard thing at work. And I hope that others gain that as well. This this conversation for me was really rejuvenating and really insightful. And sounds like it was for you as well.
Madeleine McGirk 47:32
Yeah, definitely. I think there's something really special about people speaking to people you already know, but have never you've been busy working with them. So you never go, how did you get here? What was that? Like? What happened? And I think those moments can be so. So impactful, because you kind of go, Oh, I did that, too. I never know we had that in common or Oh, I never occurred to me, that could be a trajectory. I think it's just nice to take the time to connect that way and something. Yeah, we don't always get the chance to do so I'm very glad that we have this opportunity to roping in interesting people and saying how did this happen?
Jeff M. Poulin 48:07
Yeah, I totally agree. Well, perhaps that's how we close out with a little call to action. I wonder what it would be if all of our listeners all around the world, took a moment and just reached out to someone that they collaborate with and had those conversations to ask about their, their trajectory to unpack their, you know, latest work to understand sort of what makes them tick. I think that will be really interesting. So let's, let's consider that a charge. If you're listening right now, why don't you go ahead and set up a conversation with someone and feel free to let us know you can email us your thoughts. All that information will follow this episode. So
Madeleine McGirk 48:42
tag us if you post it. That's the kind of thing I love to listen to. And I'm like doing dishes or cooking or something.
Jeff M. Poulin 48:48
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's great. Well, Madeleine, that brings us to a close for this episode of the white Chang podcast. Thanks for joining me for a quick chat today. And thanks to Lisa for sharing your insights and projects and all the great stuff and as a reminder, all of the links are in our show notes, and we'll be sure to catch you next time. Thank you. I hope you enjoy today's episode of why change the podcast for a Creative Generation. All sources discussed in this episode are located in the show notes. If you haven't already, be sure to follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Also, you can write us at info at Creative dash generation.org We would love to hear your ideas the topics you want to learn about and why change matters to you. This episode was produced by me Jeff M pooling. Our artwork is by Bridget Woodbury. Our editor is Katie Rainey, the podcast theme music is by distant cousins. A special thanks to our contributors, co hosts and the team at Creative Generation for their support.