Arts and Humanities Wins Recognition from City
By Christopher Smith
The Arts and Humanities Division at ACC was presented with a Community Arts Award on Oct. 19th by the City of Austin’s Cultural Arts Division. The Division was given the award for its work in bringing together various art education groups in Austin.
“The Arts and Humanities Division has been absolutely integral in pushing the community arts discussion related to the Create Austin Cultural Master Plan recommendation,” said Vincent E. Kitch, Cultural Arts Program Manager for the City of Austin.
In the Create Austin Cultural Plan there was a need for someone to bring various education groups together and give them all a space to converse. The Arts and Humanities Division decided to provide that space in the fall of 2008 when it hosted the first in a series of Community Arts Summits.
“[The City of Austin] came up with various goals through Create Austin and then several sub goals and one of those was to work out a plan for Austin arts education. What the document says is that they needed a convener so we volunteered to be that convener,” said Lyman Grant, Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division.
Before the Division could bring the various arts education groups together, Grant reached out to a former ACC faculty member Grady Hillman. Hillman is nationally recognized for his work in starting arts programs in prisons and has expertise in bringing art into the community as an educational tool. Grant hired Hillman as a consultant and together they were able to start the series of summits.
The meetings culminated with the month of April being designated Austin Art Daze and the celebrations were kicked off at Carnival ah! at ACC”s Rio Grande campus. Austin Council Member Laura Morrison presented the college a City Proclamation signed by Mayor Will Winn. The carnival showcased the arts, and various art education groups had booths and put on performances during the carnival. Jodi Jinks, Drama professor at ACC, worked with the city and with the art education organizations to bring in and give space to as many art education organizations as possible.
Grant is quick to point out the hard work of the entire Arts and Humanities Division and said the Community Arts Award is, “to the Division of Arts and Humanities. This truly was a group of people who did this and they include Jodi Jinks, Darla Johnson, John Herndon, Arthur Adair, Kathryn Benson, and Gail Folkins. Really they are too many to name. These folks took on certain roles throughout the whole process. It really was an initiative of the Arts and Humanities Division.”
