Browsing by Subject "Community Engagement"
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Item A Brave Space for Community: Bolstering K-12 Theatre Education for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion(2019-05) Loest, Tylor; MA in Arts AdministrationChanges in and enhanced access to K-12 theatre education can create greater long-term diversity, equity, and inclusion in American theatre. Recent data on theatre participation demonstrates audience participants to be primarily white, older, and highly educated. This group of participants is aging and decreasing their attendance. This paper explores how twentieth-century suburban growth, racial discrimination, and widening income inequality led to a system of Opportunity Hoarding. This opportunity for early arts-access, created predominantly for white Americans, aided their lifelong participation. As America shifts to a majority-minority in 2045, classrooms will begin to become more racially and ethnically diverse beginning around 2020. The second part of this paper examines how practices of the twentieth century created a diversity gap in the classroom, failing to reflect today’s students and communities. This gap hinders students from fully embracing lifelong participation in theatre. The findings of this paper demonstrate how professional theatres and community arts and cultural organizations, through a social justice lens for community engagement, can aid schools in eliminating bias within K-12 theatre education to build future participants. To combat widening income inequality, these arts and cultural leaders can work with students and communities to meet their needs in gaining access to live theatre. Finally, with public schools focused on standardized tests and the charge to fill science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers by 2020, access to K-12 theatre education must be redefined to restore its place among core areas of study. The creation of a brave space for community building in schools for K-12 theatre education can aid in increasing test scores, developing social-emotional skills, re-engage civil discourse, and move STEM to STEAM. These changes can result in enhanced access to K-12 theatre education. This early exposure to theatre will build a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive American theatre.Item A DECOLONIZED APPROACH TO ARCHIVAL MANAGEMENT FOR LANGUAGE(2016-06-20) Mata, Leah; MA in Cultural SustainabilityA project to create and develop culturally appropriate frameworks that will continually support the revitalization and preservation of indigenous languages that are endangered or have no living speakers. This project takes a decolonized approach in assisting communities to develop their own tribal protocols that work within their cultural context. The project methodology and its findings are applicable for Native American communities developing archival and cultural heritage management systems.Item Increasing public safety in Baltimore through building transformative community and police relationships(2021-07-13) Keely, Linda; Nader, Elias S; University of Baltimore. College of Public Affairs; University of Baltimore. Master of Science in Criminal Justice.The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is required under a federal consent decree to commit to community policing principles and establish a partnership with the community. This paper addresses three research questions related to the required change: Are the community and BPD ready for transformative relationships, what matters to the Baltimore community in informal and formal engagement, and what is necessary for BPD to collaboratively produce public safety solutions with the community. A qualitative analysis and triangulation were performed on three data sources: BPD staff focus groups on community policing; focus groups, interviews, and public forums on community policing with community members; and observations of BPD-community monthly district meetings. The data contained almost 2,000 references which were coded into 84 categories that addressed the research questions. The findings are mixed. BPD is not ready for change; what matters to the community, and BPD staff, is simply positive interactions with each other; and to collaborate on public safety, BPD must view residents as subject matter experts and embrace them as part of entire decision-making process.Item My Nude Tights Are Brown: Employing Community Engagement in Black-Led Dance Spaces(2023-05) Benjamin, Lindsay; MA in Arts AdministrationAn examination of community engagement in arts organizations through the lens of Black-led institutions in Ballet.Item “WHAT WOULD JANE DO?” SUSTAINING FOLKLORE VILLAGE’S FUTURE THROUGH COLLECTIVE MEMORY(2017-01-13) Dreyer, Alessandra; Eleuterio, Susan; MA in Cultural SustainabilityIn 1967, folk dancer Jane Farwell opened a rural and traditional arts organization in the middle of Southwest Wisconsin. She called it Folklore Village, “a happy personification of fine recreation, combining game, music, and folk materials .” As described on the organizational website, “Jane created a unique philosophy of recreation that blended seasonal celebrations, ethnic traditions, and emphasizes the importance of rural communities, family, and people of all ages creating their own "fun.” Over the years since, Folklore Village has grown as a community where traditional dancers can learn ethnic dances from leaders in the Folk Dance field. Some members of this community have been around since its initial founding fifty years ago. Despite these deep roots, funding for Folklore Village has been on the decline: donations are steadily dropping 20% each year. Between the financial difficulties and the aging Folklore Village community, it has become clear that collecting and preserving community knowledge must be part of the conversation about sustaining the organization’s future. Using Farwell’s philosophy, “Live, Preserve, Teach,” which Farwell suggests as a way for people of different cultural backgrounds to come together and connect via cultural exchange , and melding it with Oldenburg’s theory of “The Great, Good Place , where people from different communities can come together to form a “Third Space,” this paper, framed through my experience as an intern being trained to present rural arts programming, will look at how “third spaces”, spaces that meet the middle ground between work and home, can be used to preserve and sustain community. In creating this archive for the organization, I propose that it will act as a “third space” within Folklore Village, giving people contributing to it a place to connect with one another over a shared history with the organization.