After a fun day gardening and playing with the kids, we watched a session from the June 2021 Teaching and Learning Conference hosted (virtually) by Elon University. The session entitled “Cultivating Arts Leadership: A Student-led Arts Management Consulting Project” was presented by Wen Guo, Assistant Professor of Art Administration, Elon University and Shineece Sellar, Executive Director of African American Cultural Arts & History Center, Appalachian State University. Sellar mentioned being born in the area and that her mother was deeply involved with the African-American Cultural Arts and History Center at Alamance County. Sellar is now the executive director of the Center after her mother passed away. They officially opened to the public in April with the mission to collect and preserve the stories of the African American people in the area. Guo described how they built the partnership with the Center of Design Thinking at Elon. Guo emphasized that institutional support was critical for successful service learning projects and partnerships. Sellar explained how since 2017 their center has worked with several Elon professors and students. Guo described how they approached the partnership and course design. They used a backward design approach and focused on creating a consulting report on governance effectiveness and a board member leadership handbook. Guo has designed the course and included specific learning outcomes: “enhance students’ ability and understanding of being responsible citizen[s] and good allies of BIPOC arts organizations; deepening students understanding of systemic oppression and racism through exploring local African American history.” We have been trying to include specific course objectives that address systemic oppression and diversity, and I thought these objectives were along the lines of what we strive for! Guo spoke about the leadership goals for students in the course and project. The social change leadership model and consulting ethics were used to frame the student project. Evidence collection and evidence-based conclusions were part of the process. The students were divided by Guo into three teams: a desk research team, a field research team, and a writing and design masters team. Each team had a day-to-day coordinator. Guo had a specific project timeline that was very detailed; I wonder if that was the ideal timeline or what actually happened? Even though there were limitations due to the pandemic, Guo thought the experience went well because of the advantage of students already knowing each other and the teams being a small community. Students created a handbook and based on the table of contents presented, the handbook has a set of tools that will help the board and organization. The student feedback that Guo shared mentioned systemic oppression awareness and building leadership skills. Sellars spoke about the partner’s view and the experience of working with students in the AAD 495 Arts administration (seniors) course. Students were able to listen into board meetings and listing out things they could change. Sellars described how they have begun implementing suggestions from the report at board meetings including ice breakers to improve board cohesiveness and communication. The board will also now have annual reviews as suggested by the students! Importantly, Sellars seemed convinced that the partnership helped their organization and the students and instructor. During the question and answer part of the session, Sellars mentioned that the students also helped with the bylaws for their organization and the handbook now clearly explained the roles of the people supporting the organization. Guo talked about stressing that students can impact these organization with small suggestions and changes. I love the concept of service learning and hope to continue partnering with the Sustainability Office and Composting Facilities on campus as part of the BIT 295 course we are launching this coming spring. This session gave me some ideas!
