Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts & Culture
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Back in business
Posted: April 25, 2006
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I'm finally back after a jam-packed weekend conference in Toronto with the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE) -- folks like me that run or work with degree-granting programs in arts and cultural management, research, and policy. I'm always struck by the amount of insight and industry intelligence in the room at these events, and the true passion for making this strange and dysfunctional realm of the world work.
Panels, keynotes, and plenaries explored ways for higher education institutions and their faculty to engage and advance the truly vexing issues of the culture field -- community engagement, financial management and strategy, diversity in word and deed, leadership and succession, audience connection, generational shifts -- as well as the various tools we have to address them -- case studies, internships, curriculum, on-line technologies, and such. And, of course, there was drinking -- beer, wine, Canadian scotch, and even a splash of ratafia, believe it or not.
The number of great individuals and big ideas in the room reinforced my belief that we don't lack capacity in this field, we lack productive and dynamic interaction. The answers to our challenges are all out there, in bits and pieces among existing practice, emerging research, and extraordinary passion. The trick is to assemble those answers from the various insular pockets of insight where they are currently trapped.
I have been affiliated with AAAE for over a decade, and a board member for the past three years. On Saturday, I was elected to serve as the association's president -- an exciting and humbling thing. I plan to dedicate my term to encouraging those connections, and helping more people in more places discover the glorious individuals our association represents.