{"id":356,"date":"2011-08-31T10:38:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T14:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=356"},"modified":"2011-08-31T10:38:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T14:38:47","slug":"cat-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/08\/cat-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"CAT Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.art-stl.com\/assets\/images\/h_CAT.gif\" alt=\"http:\/\/www.art-stl.com\/assets\/images\/h_CAT.gif\" \/>Last year I had the good fortune to attend a conference, <a href=\"http:\/\/crossroadsconvening.com\/\">At the Crossroads<\/a>, hosted the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. There I met or got re-acquainted with a number of people active in the community arts movement. I also had the opportunity to get some first-hand insight into a unique program, RAC&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.art-stl.com\/CAT\/\">Community Arts Training Institute<\/a>. CAT, begun in 1997, provides participants intensive training over five long weekends in how to connect the arts and communities. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.art-stl.com\/CAT\/Curriculum.cfm\">curriculum<\/a> covers topics from resource development to partnership building to cultural competency and understanding of power and privilege.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been hard-pressed to decide whether CAT belongs in my category of Under the Radar (not widely known in the arts world, largely focused on community) or Winds of Change (established arts organizations actively engaged with community). Certainly, RAC is an establishment organization. It is a large institution on the national arts scene that through this program is deeply engaged with the St. Louis region. At the same time, CAT, while staff members of mainline St. Louis arts organizations are both students and instructors, has a <em>strong<\/em> emphasis on community. In my limited conversations in St. Louis, it appeared that most CAT students were either individual artists or staff members of (non-arts) community service organizations. Plus, it is not <em>nearly<\/em> well-enough known for its work. Therefore, I took the easy way out and call it both.<\/p>\n<p>Among the many things I find attractive about CAT are the acknowledgement that substantive community engagement requires specialized training (workers in this area need to understand communities and their personal limitations); the fact that developing skills and putting them into practice takes time\u2013there are no quick fixes; the program actively seeks out community participants; and RAC is committed to this work on a deep level. Even when external funding has not been found for the program, RAC has funded it out of institutional resources. Plus, there is a commitment of staff time and grant dollars from RAC for the work of (and that grows out of) CAT. For a good look into the program, see a <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.art21.org\/2011\/08\/01\/community-arts-training-institute-a-conversation-with-roseann-weiss\/\">recent blog post on art:21<\/a>, an interview with Roseann Weiss. (Disclosure: Roseann is writing a chapter about CAT for <em><a title=\"Building Communities, Not Audiences\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/building-communities-not-audiences\/\">Building Communities, Not Audiences<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>The only disappointment I feel in writing about CAT is that there are not more cities and towns in the U.S. that have picked up on the example. This is work that has been paying dividends in arts support and arts activity in St. Louis. Think on these things.<\/p>\n<p>Engage!<\/p>\n<p>Doug<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year I had the good fortune to attend a conference, At the Crossroads, hosted the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. There I met or got re-acquainted with a number of people active in the community arts movement. I also had the opportunity to get some first-hand insight into a unique program, RAC&#8217;s Community [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-examples","7":"category-under-the-radar","8":"category-winds-of-change","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-5K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":209,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/08\/under-the-radar\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":0},"title":"Under the Radar","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"August 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, in Winds of Change, I began a series of posts sharing examples of established arts organizations committed to substantive community engagement. This week I am introducing another category for your consideration. The arts began engaged with the communities they served. That's the history of the field. The disconnect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Examples&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Radar.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":384,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/09\/under-the-radar-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":1},"title":"Under the Radar-2","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"For over a decade, the Community Arts Network was the world's single most comprehensive website devoted the potential that the arts represent for community growth and improvement. It will be shocking to some that I include it in the \"Under the Radar\" category. For those of us vitally interested in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Examples&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Radar.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":204,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/08\/winds-of-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":2},"title":"Winds of Change","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"August 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Some rights reserved by m.prinke In my last post, \"Click,\" I wrote about awakening to a disconnect between arts organizations and their communities. There has been little in the arts infrastructure that has encouraged commitment or relationships that went beyond the bounds of the arts establishment. And yet boundary-busting has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Examples&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/WindmillsAtSeaCropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/10\/winds-of-change-hgo\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":3},"title":"Winds of Change: Houston Grand Opera","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"October 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the minds of the general public, opera is often seen as the most distant and elitist of the arts. (Opera lovers, don't pile on. I'm simply articulating what is a fairly common \"on the street\" perception.) That is why examples of deep community engagement coming from the opera world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Examples&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/WindmillsAtSeaCropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":436,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2011\/09\/winds-of-change-yerba-buena-center-for-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":4},"title":"Winds of Change: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"September 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is taking community engagement seriously and to an extremely individual level. The Center's YBCA: YOU program provides one-on-one introductions to YBCA and contemporary art. (Once again, and clearly not for the last time, I am indebted to Nina Simon's Museum 2.0 for highlighting an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Examples&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/WindmillsAtSeaCropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1477,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2012\/04\/rustbelt-to-artsbelt\/","url_meta":{"origin":356,"position":5},"title":"Rustbelt to Artsbelt","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"April 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I am attending a conference in St Louis hosted by the Regional Art Commission of St. Louis and the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture of Cleveland. The conference\u2019s title is Rustbelt to Artsbelt: At the Crossroads, Arts-Based Community Development Convening. I attended the initial At the Crossroads conference two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Principles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}