Higher Education Center To Host Arts Conference June 4
Eleven national and state speakers will be featured during a Building Communities Through the Arts Conference to be sponsored by the Higher Education Center at the Prizery on June 4.
“This regional conference is designed as a mobilizing strategy for the economic, educational, and cultural development of Southern Virginia and its individual communities,” explains Ted Bennett, SVHEC executive director.
Mayor John Barrett III of North Adams, Mass., Monica Haslip, founder and executive director of Little Black Pearl in Chicago, Glenn Tomlinson, the William Randolph Heart Curator of Education at Norton Museum of Art, Betsy K. White, director of William King Regional Art Center in Abingdon, and Max Stephenson Jr., director of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Goverance, are among the June 4 featured speakers.
Other speakers will include Ico Bukvic, Virginia Tech assistant professor in music composition and technology and founder and director of the Digital Interactive Sound and Intermedia Studio, Foster Billingsley, deputy director for the Virginia Commission for the Arts, Sandy Rusak, deputy director for education and statewide partnerships for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and Dr. Paul Winistorfer, professor and head of the department of wood science and forest products, College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech, Bennett and Chris Jones, The Prizery’s executive director.
“We are inviting the region’s leadership in business, local government, education, as well as artists and art organizations throughout the counties of Mecklenburg, Charlotte, Halifax, Pittsylvania, Henry, and Patrick, as well as the cities of Danville and Martinsville to attend this inaugural event.”
Speakers from throughout the state and nation will explain how the arts are being used to build communities.
Bennett says he envisions the conference as “a catalytic event,” one that will help in achieving the focus of developing regional partnerships “that will leverage the many significant assets the region has in the arts and design.”
“The expected collaborations will help make our individual communities more attractive places to live, work, further our education, and do business,” added Bennett.
The use of the Building Communities Through the Arts as a central principle around which to organize regional development efforts is firmly based in current research, according to SVHEC officials, who note research regarding arts and design supports this initiative as a sound strategy for:
n Economic Development: the arts provide direct economic impact in the community, encourage entrepreneurial activity; and attract new business, particularly in the emerging design sector.
n Workforce Development: the arts provide a platform for building career pathways for both young people and “incumbent workers” in the expanding “creative sector”.
n Community Development: strong arts programming provides a demonstrated boost to educational outcomes for k-12 students and builds a community attractive to the “creative class”.
Bennett said the conference will showcase a number of outstanding individuals who will speak first hand from their experiences and initiatives about how arts and design work wonders for children and their communities.
“The real-life experiences and successes to be shared give powerful validation to the research,” added the executive director. The conference will begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, June 4.
Register for the Building Communities Through the Arts conference online at http://www.svhed.org or call 434-572-5496.
