Undergraduate students graduating in December 2013 or May 2014 can apply to be Imagining America��Engagement Scholars or Entrepreneurship Engagement Scholars.

The yearlong program supports recent graduates with a strong academic record to become civic-minded professionals or entrepreneurs in Central New York, and to begin graduate studies at Syracuse University through a 24-credit tuition scholarship.

Students are selected based on their academic record, their experience with civic engagement or entrepreneurship, a faculty or professional recommendation and an in-depth interview.

The Imagining America Engagement Scholars program provides recent graduates with a transition from undergraduate study to employment and graduate education. In addition to the 24-credit tuition scholarship, students have access to professional and faculty mentors, assistance in finding a job and opportunities for professional development and networking through monthly seminars and the Publicly Active Graduate Education—Central New York Chapter.

“The Imagining America Engagement Scholars program nurtures the pipeline of publicly engaged scholars,” says Tim Eatman, faculty co-director of and a professor in the . “The program expands the sense students have of the multitude of ways that various disciplines contribute to the public good.”

“As an Engagement Scholar, I began a graduate program at Maxwell, worked at the Near East Foundation and expanded my knowledge of civic engagement and what it means to serve a community,” says Marc Mason, a 2012-2013 Imagining America Engagement Scholar and current M.P.A./M.A.I.R. student at the .

The Entrepreneurship Engagement Scholars program provides recent graduates with an opportunity to start a for-profit or nonprofit venture. In addition to the 24-credit��tuition scholarship, students have professional and faculty mentors and space in the Student Sandbox at the Tech Garden and/or the Couri Hatchery.

“The Entrepreneurship Engagement Scholars stay in Syracuse to start their ventures,” says Stacey Keefe, executive director of the at Syracuse University. “Through the program, scholars have access to SU resources for another year. We make sure that they are aware of the many events, meetups, workshops and competitions that they have the opportunity to participate in, and they make connections in the community, further investing them in Syracuse.”

The��program’s entrepreneurial endeavors in the past have included the��following: creating a workspace for freelancers and entrepreneurs; an��incubator for product lines designed by SU students; a pop-up shop for art students to promote and sell their work; a free social browsing app;��a portable and self-sustained rainwater harvesting system; and a jewelry company that sells handcrafted rings as symbols of female��empowerment.

“Having an extra year to utilize SU’s vast network of both academic and non-academic resources was simply a game changer,” says Michael Smith, 2012 Engagement Scholar and co-founder of Centscere. “Because of the scholars program, I was aware of tons of opportunities to engage with the community and find people who could help me move my venture forward.”

2013-14 Engagement Scholar Profiles

For a sense of the range of projects represented by the Engagement Scholars, here are profiles of this year’s class:

Imagining America��Engagement Scholars

• Christopher Borncamp, B.S. in advertising, will pursue a master’s degree in public relations from the and plans to create a PR campaign geared toward SU students about Syracuse’s vitality.
• Ousman Diallo, B.S. in information management and technology, will work on “Public: A Journal of Imagining America” and pursue a master’s degree in photography from Newhouse.
• Quinton Fletchall, B.I.D. in industrial and interactive design, will work at the Connective Corridor and pursue a master’s degree in communication and rhetorical studies from the .
• Kathleen Kogel, B.S. communication and rhetorical studies, will pursue a certificate of advanced studies in addiction studies and will work in community engagement in the Syracuse community.
• Stacey Lindbloom, bachelor of architecture, will work with the Near Westside Initiative��and co-teach a 1-credit survey seminar on Syracuse, titled System City: unpacking, hacking, and restacking in spring 2014.
• Brian Luce, bachelor of architecture, will work with UPSTATE to help develop a visiting critics studio and a Syracuse-specific design-build project.
• Juliann Merryman, B.A. in international relations and Middle Eastern studies, will work at the Near East Foundation and pursue a master’s degree in international relations from Maxwell.
• Sarah Myers, B.S. in health and exercise science, will continue her work with Planned Parenthood and hopes to pursue a master’s degree in social work from the .
• Hannah Nast, B.F.A. in art photography��and religion, will work as a production coordinator at SU Arts Engage��and pursue a certificate of advanced study in information innovation from the .
• Leondra Polk, B.S. in social work and psychology, will work at the Elmcrest Children’s Center in the Family Transitions Program and pursue a master’s degree in social work from the Advance Standing Program.
• Trevor Raushi, B.A. in sociology, will pursue a master’s degree in cultural foundations of education and��work with QuERI (Queering Education Research Institute).
• Mary-Jo Robinson, B.A. in policy studies and psychology, will continue her work with Hopeprint and pursue a M.A. in international relations from Maxwell.
• Heather Ryerson, B.F.A. in illustration, will work at the Talent Agency and pursue a M.F.A. in illustration from VPA.
• Michelle Tarshus, B.S. in information management and technology, is pursuing a number of community-based poetry projects with the Underground Poetry Spot and is continuing her work at the VA Hospital through the Veteran Appreciation Shows and Poetry/Art Therapy Initiative she has established. She is pursuing a M.S. in library and information sciences specializing in school media.
• Corinne Tyo, B.F.A. in acting, will work as a production coordinator at SU Arts Engage and pursue a M.A. from the Janklow Arts Leadership Program.

Kauffman Entrepreneurship Engagement Scholars:

• Aldrine Ashong-Katai�� ’13, B.S. in public health, business management, and pre-medicine, founder of Arcit, a website for Syracuse University students to buy and sell products (textbooks, furniture, microwaves, etc.) for reasonable prices.
• Koby Brandstein ’13, B.S. in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises and information technology and management, and founder of iSucceedOnline, a program that digitally facilitates reading comprehension for struggling students.
• Russel DeRemer ’13, B.S. in finance, and founder of Wealth Enabler, an asset management website for millennials.
• Ian Dickerson ’13, B.S. in communication and rhetorical studies, and president of , a social media donation platform that enables users to donate to their favorite charity through simple social media actions.
• Michelle Gaston ’13, B.S. in communication and rhetorical studies, and co-founder of , a business management platform that doubles as a site for SME’s to commission high quality creative services.
• Troy Harris, Jr. ’13, B.A. in African American studies, and founder of Collar Candy, a bowtie accessory line with bowties that can be worn in numerous ways to accommodate any event.
• Lizette Lewis ’13, B.S. in communication and rhetorical studies, and founder of Promise to Keep Your Head Up, which seeks to motivate, encourage and instill goal seeking strategies and confidence within young females in the Syracuse Area to accomplish their goals, especially those striving to go to college.
• Jennifer Osias ’13, B.A. in international relations and political science, and founder of AccuFit, a program that creates a virtual mannequin so that online shoppers can try clothes on virtually.
• Altan Senaydin ’13, B.F.A. in photography and B.S. in information technology and management, and founder of , a fashion, portrait and concert photography company.
• Justin Sullivan ’12 B.A. in theater arts from Le Moyne College, and founding executive producer for the , an annual performance arts festival.
• Edward Zaremba ’13, B.S. in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises, and founder of Disability Identity Consulting, which will promote an inclusive culture for people with and without disabilities.

Prospective students are invited to attend one of the following information sessions:

• Tuesday, Dec. 3, 9:30-10:30 a.m., 060 Eggers Hall
• Friday, Dec. 6, 3:30-4:30 p.m., 207 Hall of Languages

To apply, visit .

For information about the Imagining America Engagement Scholars, contact Karen Boland, IA office supervisor, at kcboland@syr.edu and 315-443-8590.

For information about the Entrepreneurship Engagement Scholars, contact Stacey Keefe, executive director, RvD IDEA, at sekeefe@syr.edu and 315-443-7086.

The first issue of Public: A Journal of Imagining America

The first issue of Public: A Journal of Imagining America, foregrounding the arts, humanities and design in public life, launched Oct. 5 with a double issue focusing on the linked fates and futures of universities and their surrounding communities.

Public breaks new ground as a hybrid online multimedia journal and archive, with innovative web interfaces to peer-reviewed multi-modal scholarship and creative work. It furthers Imagining America’s mission to make visible the value of cultural disciplines and promotes Syracuse University as a national leader in publicly engaged scholarship and practice.

Public was developed by three Syracuse University professors—University Professor and former Imagining America (IA) Director Jan Cohen-Cruz; Brian Lonsway, associate professor of architecture; and Kathleen Brandt, assistant professor of design—as the first e-journal to be published by Syracuse Unbound, a joint imprint of Syracuse University Libraries and Syracuse University Press. The University’s Information Technology and Support division collaborated on web development and, with Syracuse University Libraries, provides technical support for the journal’s content management systems.

Senior editor and co-founder Cohen-Cruz explains the importance of Public as a space for boundary-expanding artists, designers and scholars.

“Journals have played significant roles in solidifying the contribution of particular bodies of knowledge to public life—think of the role of journals in the women’s movement, in the effort to recognize African American and Latino/a studies as significant scholarly and social projects,” Cohen-Cruz says. “We hope Public will similarly contribute to publicly engaged scholarship and practice emphasizing public humanities, arts and design especially given the possibilities that our online format opens up.”

Co-founders and journal designers Brandt and Lonsway developed the journal’s unique frameworks, including interactive articles and data visualizations, to build upon and highlight the diversities and pluralities—as well as their many forms of engagement—that are at the core of Imagining America.

K. Matthew Dames, interim dean of libraries and University Librarian at Syracuse University, notes, “The journal Public is a concrete example of exciting current and forthcoming work emanating from the Libraries and the Press, and provides further evidence of the Press’ commitment to extending all forms of scholarship into the digital and multimedia platforms.”

For more information visit , or contact the editor at public@imaginingamerica.org.

Four hundred people from colleges and universities from across the United States will come to Syracuse University Friday through Sunday, Oct. 4-6, for the (IA) annual national conference. Their common mission is to find ways and means to strengthen the democratic purposes of higher education. Structured as “A Call to Action,” the conference will convene college presidents, faculty, staff, students, artists, designers and community members to share research and stories especially about how arts, design and humanities can increase civic virtue, help solve community problems and celebrate local life.

The conference’s keynote address–a conversation between SU Chancellor and President Nancy Cantor and Chief Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Council of Chiefs of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy–will take place on Friday at 10 a.m. at Syracuse Stage (820 E. Genesee St.). Cantor and Lyons will share personal stories about being change agents in this region and discuss the issues shaping this unique historical moment.

On Friday afternoon, conference participants will visit sites of innovative campus-community collaboration, including the SU Office of Community Engagement and Economic Development, Talent Agency, Near Westside Initiative, The Warehouse, Gear Factory, SaltQuarters Gallery, Skä•noñh Great Law of Peace Center, Community Folk Art Center, Matilda Joslyn Gage Center for Social Justice Dialogue, South Side Initiative, Connective Corridor, Hendricks Chapel, ArtRage Gallery, Syracuse Cultural Workers and Central New York Regional Market. Concurrent with the site visits on Friday afternoon, Cantor will co-host the IA Presidents’ Forum with more than a dozen college presidents across the country and regional government officials to discuss opportunities for higher education’s civic mission.

(DFR), a Syracuse-based grassroots theater company that uses music and theater to spark conversations about democracy, will perform “A Prophetic Vision for Education” on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Plymouth Church (232 E. Onondaga St.). Open to the public, the performance will feature the Syracuse Community Choir and guest “preacher” Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois Chicago, and author of “Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision” (University of North Carolina Press, 2005).

Saturday, the conference’s morning plenary (at WCNY Studios, 415 W. Fayette St.) will launch the first issue of , published by Syracuse Unbound, a joint imprint of SU Libraries and SU Press. Public breaks new ground as a hybrid online multimedia journal and archive, with innovative web interfaces to peer-reviewed multi-modal scholarship and creative work, providing unique forms of access to a variety of modes of expression. Foregrounding the arts, design and humanities in public life, the first issue explores the linked fates and futures of universities and their surrounding communities.

There will be a number of sessions during the day on Saturday and Sunday at The Warehouse (350 W. Fayette St.) and other nearby locations on topics that include Engaged Undergraduate Education and Publicly Active Graduate Education; Partnering with Public Humanities Centers and State Humanities Councils; Art and the Environment; Food Justice/Food Sovereignty; The Nation Inside: Higher Education and the Prison-Industrial Complex; Integrated Assessment; K-12/Youth Education; Public Interest Design; and more.

On Saturday at 7 p.m. at Plymouth Church (232 E. Onondaga St.), conference attendees will have the opportunity to attend , a performance in the form of a luminous service celebrating the universal quest for spirituality.

Sunday, the morning plenary (at WCNY Studios, 415 W. Fayette St.) will focus on IA’s ongoing full participation action-research with the at Columbia University Law School. Leaders from 21 participating schools will speak about ways to build higher education institutions that enable people from all communities, backgrounds and identities to participate fully, and in the process, to build collective knowledge and capacity needed to solve difficult public problems.

To foster individual and collective actions that advance the democratic purposes of higher education, IA is employing an experimental approach that combines information collection, discourse and analysis. Led by writer , the closing plenary sessions on Saturday and Sunday evening will map the actions participants want to take and collectively consider questions of strategy.

Registration for the conference is available on site. Join the conversation virtually on Twitter by following and hashtag #ImagA13, and the IA blog on . For more information, review the conference schedule or e-mail connect@imaginingamerica.org.

“There’s a perception when you talk about young women in the city that they don’t have a passion for education or they don’t have a drive—and that’s completely not true,” notes Boahene in the video. “If your parents have not gone to school, you don’t know what you need to do, right? So finding the people that fill in those gaps, and say, that’s OK, maybe your parents don’t know but we know, and we’ll take the responsibility. That’s what a lot of the women in the organization do.”

“The New Activists: Students in the Community” is web series featuring students bringing their knowledge to collaborations with community members to address important community-identified problems and opportunities. Produced by IA Communications Manager Jamie Haft with SU’s (OTN), the stories explore the impact of publicly engaged scholarship.

The first video in the series tells the story of Danielle Preiss, a dual master’s student at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and in the , who collaborates with Bhutanese-Nepali refugees on a vibrant community garden.

The video shows how the project enables the older refugee gardeners to pass on their agrarian knowledge to their children and grandchildren and their new U.S. neighbors, while helping to revitalize a city struggling with the loss of industry.

In the series’ second video, Cornell University undergraduate student-athlete Kaitlin Hardy tells how her personal experience with epilepsy motivates her to start a nonprofit organization, FACES: Facts, Advocacy, and Control of Epileptic Seizures. She is also inspired to found Cornell’s first student-run research lab in which she and fellow students search for remedies to the severe side effects of epilepsy medication.

These student leaders were identified in a story contest about scholarship in service to community problem-solving. The idea for the contest was sparked by two federal initiatives about higher education’s civic mission, the American Commonwealth Partnership and the White House Young America Series. The selected stories were then produced by Haft, OTN’s General Manager Andy Robinson and videographer/editor Holly Zahn, with the support of project adviser Kevin Morrow. The video production was made possible by OTN.

Since the first video was posted last fall, the stories have been gaining popularity—for example, the community gardening video has already been viewed on YouTube more than 3,800 times and was featured in The Huffington Post. Last month Haft presented the videos in Denver at the national American Democracy Project/The Democracy Commitment conference.

Imagining America is planning another round of story-gathering and video production to feature a diversity of students from colleges across the country and internationally. To get involved, contact Haft at jmhaft@syr.edu and 315-345-3931.

The (DFR), a Syracuse-based grassroots theater company that uses music and theater to spark conversations about freedom and democracy, will perform with senior citizens on Saturday, Feb. 16, at 3 p.m. at Grace Episcopal Church (819 Madison Ave.). The performance, “Snow on the Rooftop, Fire in the Furnace,” highlights the vitality, contributions, rights and dignity of older people in the community. It will tell the story of the city’s decision to defund and abruptly close the 36-year-old downtown Ida Benderson Senior Center and the isolation that many seniors subsequently faced. Sponsored by , the and , the performance will be followed by a meal and conversation, free and open to the public.

“Seniors have been less visible on downtown streets since the center closed,” says Denise Nepveux, who is organizing the collaboration between the DFR and the Ida Benderson Seniors Action Group. “The center provided a home base where older people of all incomes and backgrounds could socialize and from which they could participate in city life. It’s a loss to Syracuse. But these seniors are still here, and wish to be heard—so much that they are willing to perform! They feel that downtown is for everyone. We welcome you to join in song and conversation about how to become a more senior-friendly Syracuse.”

Since 1975, the at 205 S. Salina St. was a busy downtown drop-in recreation spot for seniors, serving 60-80 meals every day. It was closed in September 2011, despite numerous community groups marching in the streets with seniors to protest.

The Ida Benderson Seniors Action Group, comprised of seniors and allies, formed after the center closed. By meeting weekly and through this performance, they hope to keep their community together, advocate for a new senior center downtown and raise awareness about the issues older people face.

The DFR is premised as a secular tent revival for freedom and democracy. In this performance, original theatrical scenes and original music—including a blues opera entitled the “Ida Benderson Blues”—will be performed jointly by the 15-person DFR ensemble (part church choir, part traveling vaudeville troupe) and members of the Ida Benderson Seniors Action Group.

“It feels great to use my training as an artist and a scholar to be part of a community-driven project that builds artistic platforms where others can express and celebrate the things that matter to them. To me, this project exemplifies the many ways colleges and universities can play a meaningful role in democratic life,” says Kevin Bott, founder of the DFR and associate director of Imagining America. “The whole DFR experience has been one of discovery—trying to find the best way to serve as an amplifier for the voices of regular Syracusans and Central New Yorkers. The Benderson Revival is the first of a yearlong series that will use a very engaging and unique kind of performance to invite our neighbors into meaningful dialogue about the issues that are affecting their lives. As we say in the Revival, ‘If you come for the celebration, we’re going to keep you for the contemplation!'”

“With Eatman and Peters as directors, IA will continue to advance the movement for engaged scholarship in higher education,” says Bruce Burgett, chair of IA’s National Advisory Board. “In many ways, this is a better outcome of our national search than anyone on the IA board could have imagined. Building on the inspired work of outgoing IA director, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Tim and Scott will be able to use their shared commitment to institutional transformation to create significant impact, both locally and nationally.”

Eatman has provided national leadership as IA’s director of research for the last eight years, and since 2007 has been assistant professor of higher education in SU’s School of Education. He continues as a faculty member in the Higher Education Department.

A distinguished scholar of the history of American higher education’s public purposes and work, Peters comes to IA and SU from Cornell University, where he is an associate professor of education. He will have an appointment in SU’s School of Education as a professor in the Cultural Foundations of Education Department, and will also be a faculty affiliate with the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

A consortium of 90 colleges and universities from across the country, IA is the only national coalition working explicitly at the nexus of publicly engaged scholarship and the humanities, arts, and design. IA works with academic and community partners to develop knowledge about and resources for individual and institutional change through community organizing and movement-building, a large-scale annual conference, and ongoing research and action initiatives. Current initiatives include projects aimed at transforming higher education tenure and promotion policies, assessment practices, and graduate and undergraduate education to cultivate publicly engaged scholarship; linking diversity and engagement efforts on campuses; and partnering with community-based arts, cultural and humanities organizations. SU is host to IA through 2017, an extension that was announced in fall 2011.

Innovative Leadership Model

The appointment of co-directors, chosen by IA’s National Advisory Board and SU, puts Eatman and Peters in a unique position to demonstrate to IA’s national network the value of collaborative leadership. It reflects IA’s vision of not only building an organization, but also a movement for institutional transformation in which publicly engaged scholars, artists, designers and community members enrich civic life for all.

“We believe that the establishment of a shared leadership model for IA that places in view joint roles, as well as distinct but interdependent responsibilities, will nurture the health of the consortium,” says Eatman. Peters adds, “Collaborative leadership aligns with the democratic spirit and values of IA and the national public engagement movement.”

As co-directors, Eatman and Peters will share the responsibilities of strategic planning, advocacy and research, strengthening and expanding IA’s consortium, implementing robust program activity that includes an annual national conference, managing staff and fundraising. Both members of the steering committee of the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP), Eatman and Peters began collaborating on a national level last spring. ACP is a broad alliance of organizations—including the White House Office of Public Engagement and U.S. Department of Education—that promotes higher education as an agent of democracy. Through ACP, Eatman and Peters will be engaging the IA consortium in a new major action-research initiative aimed at rebuilding and reconstructing “democracy’s colleges” in American higher education.

Eatman and Peters will also have an active presence at SU and in the Syracuse community, maintaining a vigorous research and writing agenda that advances and exemplifies the public dimensions of scholarly and creative work and contributes to Scholarship in Action. They will be working across the institution with SU’s leadership and faculty of every school and college to establish an institutional presence for IA’s work that will endure beyond the years when IA’s national headquarters is located at SU.

“The appointment of Tim Eatman and Scott Peters as co-directors of Imagining America is a huge win-win for IA and SU,” says SU chancellor and president Nancy Cantor. “Not only does it model for IA’s membership the kind of collaboration that is central to the organization’s identity, but it assures that SU and our many ‘communities of experts’ will benefit from the collective impact of these two nationally prominent, innovative scholars.”

About Eatman and Peters

As IA’s research director, Eatman has provided leadership on key research and action initiatives that have shaped regional, national and global conversations about publicly engaged scholarship. As co-principal investigator of the Tenure Team Initiative on Public Scholarship, he co-wrote its seminal report, “” (2008) with IA’s founding director, Julie Ellison, and organized a series of regional meetings with Campus Compact that involved more than 60 higher education institutions. This work on faculty rewards developed into a second national study by Eatman on the career aspirations and decisions of graduate students and early-career academic professionals who identify as publicly engaged scholars.

Eatman, who transitioned with the IA headquarters from the University of Michigan to SU in 2007, has championed the expansion of the consortium’s research enterprise. He has represented IA and SU nationally and internationally through keynote addresses, workshops and consultancies that have increased conceptual understanding about and visibility for publicly engaged scholarship, forging critical relationships with several leading higher education associations. This summer for a second consecutive year he was a faculty member of the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Institute on High-Impact Practices and Student Success. He serves on the leadership team of IA’s collaborative action-research project with Columbia University Law School’s Center for Institutional and Social Change on diversity and engagement, and will soon begin a two-year appointment as an Honorary Professor at the University of South Africa.

An educational sociologist, Eatman received his Ph.D. in educational policy studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master’s degree in college student development at Howard University and a bachelor’s degree in early childhood development at Pace University. He is the recipient of the 2010 Early Career Research Award from the International Research Association for Service Learning and Community Engagement.

Peters has devoted his professional career to studying and strengthening higher education’s public mission, purposes and work. His research agenda focuses on the connections between higher education and democracy, especially in the land-grant system. His most recent book, “Democracy and Higher Education: Traditions and Stories of Civic Engagement” (Michigan State University Press, 2010), contributes to a new line of research on the critically important task of strengthening and defending higher education’s positive roles in and for a democratic society. He is the author of Imagining America’s Foreseeable Futures position paper, “.”

A nationally recognized scholar, Peters has designed and pursued independent research projects with significant support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Kettering Foundation. He is on the leadership team of a national five-year initiative, funded with a $5 million grant from USDA, called “Food Dignity: Action Research on Engaging Food Insecure Communities and Universities in Building Sustainable Community Food Systems.”

At Cornell since 1999, Peters established an innovative teaching and research program that interweaves democratic theory and political and educational philosophy with historical and narrative methods. Before Cornell, he spent two years as an assistant professor of public work with the University of Minnesota Extension System. He received two graduate degrees at the University of Minnesota: a master’s degree in public affairs from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in educational policy and administration. Before his graduate work, he served for 10 years as program director of one of the nation’s oldest community-university partnerships, the University YMCA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received his bachelor’s degree in education.

This fall, IA will host an event for the SU community to engage with new directors Eatman and Peters. They will preside over IA’s upcoming annual , Oct. 5-7, in New York City.

Cohen-CruzTwenty-three individuals, including scholars, community-based theater artists, and community activists wrote supporting letters for Cohen-Cruz’s nomination. Cohen-Cruz will be recognized at the 2012 ATHE Conference in a ceremony on Aug. 2 in Washington, D.C., at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

“Jan Cohen-Cruz’s books, anthologies, monographs and articles are crucial to understanding theater as a local act, a public performance, an inquiry with the oppressed, and as call and response,” says Sonja Kuftinec, Imagining America National Advisory Board member and professor of theater at the University of Minnesota, who, with theater activist Norma Bowles, nominated Cohen-Cruz for the award. “All those who wrote letters of support referred to Jan as a model, a hero, an inspiration and a bridge-builder.”

Cohen-Cruz joined SU in 2007 from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she served as a professor in the drama department and in the department of art and public policy. In her five-year tenure as IA director, she established numerous local programs to support the publicly engaged art and scholarship of faculty, students and leaders of community-based organizations. For example, the IA Grants program has funded 28 new courses and projects at SU, and the Engagement Fellows program, in partnership with Associate Provost for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Bruce Kingma, has enabled graduating SU seniors to seek employment in Central New York while incorporating the principle of Scholarship in Action into their professional work.

From 2008-10, Cohen-Cruz’s Art-in-Motion, a project with Open Hand Theater and Syracuse Stage, combined public conversations and performance to bring together diverse people from the four sectors of Syracuse. The project culminated in September 2010 with a large-scale performance with giant puppets and movement-based theatrical scenes in Syracuse’s Armory Square.

Cohen-Cruz is the author, most recently, of “Engaging Performance: Theatre as Call and Response” (Routledge, 2010), which includes a chapter about SU. Sponsored by the Bronx Museum and the U.S. State Department, her current research focuses on cultural diplomacy and involves 15 community-based visual arts projects in countries around the world. After June 2012, she will continue to serve as an SU University Professor and will be the founding editor of an online journal that documents, explores and critiques scholarly and creative projects that integrate arts and culture.

The courses will take place during fall 2012 and spring 2013, and include:��

Jazz and Human Rights as Cultural Democracy

Kwame Dixon, assistant professor of African American studies, and Paul Steinbeck, assistant professor of musicology and African American studies, College of Arts and Sciences

This project consists of a thematic seminar, live jazz concert and two courses, ��“Civil Rights in the Age of Jazz,” taught by Dixon, and “Masters of American Black Music,” taught by Steinbeck. The project’s goal is to contextualize the history of jazz music and musicians as part of the overall struggle for human rights and democracy in the United States��and across the globe. Students will examine how jazz musicians have theorized jazz and its connection to social context and place, and focus on the active voice of jazz musicians and their musical narratives that focus on issues of justice, democracy and human rights. Students will read about the history of U.S. civil rights and Afro-social movements through the lens of jazz. Guest speakers will include activists, scholars and musicians who will share their experiences of how jazz music and musicians influenced social movements during the 1950s and ’60s. There will be at least one jazz concert open to the public at the Community Folk Art Center.��

The Near West Side–A Fresh Set of Eyes

Mary Kish, MSW, internship coordinator, Department of Child and Family Studies, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics

This project will include documenting perspectives of young people in the Near West Side and sparking conversation among children, students and those working on revitalization efforts. As the Near West Side experiences rejuvenation and renewal, students from the Child and Family Study Department will help children who reside in the neighborhood to create images that resonate and reveal what it means to grow up in the Near West Side, what is important in their lives and how they experience changes in the neighborhood. These images will capture the sights and stories of the young residents and reflect their identification of place in this dynamic urban setting. The SU students will receive independent study credit for their work.��

Library and Information Services to Students with Disabilities

Renee Franklin, assistant professor, School of Information Studies

This course will provide strategies to enhance the efforts of school librarians to develop programs and services, provide adequate facilities and select appropriate resources and technologies to meet the needs of K-12 students with disabilities. The course will augment student education by incorporating experiential learning that involves teams of SU students collaborating virtually with school librarians, classroom teachers and classes of students with disabilities from six Syracuse city schools. The collaborations will result in the K-12 students writing, illustrating and publishing a class book and hosting a Web-based book release party. Students from any major, including those working toward school library certification, are invited to enroll.��

Upstate Modern: Housing

Jonathan Massey, associate professor, School of Architecture

��This course will engage students in the current national conversation sparked by the foreclosure crisis that raises new and important questions about the history of housing and public policy. Examining housing in the United States from the New Deal to the Clinton presidency through readings and discussions, students will learn about housing as a site of contestation over land, money and power. Workshops with city residents will teach students how to generate knowledge by engaging community members in a reciprocal dialogue to guide and share research. By creating a community history of a Syracuse housing project, the course will contribute to academic knowledge, public history and policy debates.��

Buscando América: Salsa and the Latin/American City

Sydney Hutchinson, assistant professor of ethnomusicology, and Luis Castañeda, assistant professor, art and music histories, College of Arts and Sciences

��This course will explore��salsa, a popular dance and musical form born out of the context of��urban displacement and alienation, which has been defined by��changes in the modern Latin American city, including its extensions into the barrios of��Latino immigrants around the world. How can the interrelation between musical sound, dance movements and��urban space be better understood, so as to gain a fuller understanding of salsa’s territorial��implications? Students in the seminar will combine a close analysis of salsa music and dance with readings in��urban, architectural and spatial theory; participate in artistic workshops and conversations on pressing local issues with members of the Latino community in Syracuse; and take a weekend trip to salsa sites in New York City. Students��will also undertake community-based research projects that confront the multiple variations of salsa��music and dance with other cultural forms (visual, spatial or literary) from the Americas.��

This is the fifth round of Imagining America Grants since 2008;��28 courses and projects have been supported in total. For more information about this program, visit .

Slashed budgets,��debt burdens, speculation unchecked, diminished access, narrowing measures of worth. Without support for a reorientation of values and realignment of priorities, higher education and community organizations committed to a just, equitable and fully participatory vision of the world face a challenge to their most cherished ideals and in some cases, their very survival. Against these forces of unequal benefit, induced scarcity and reduced expectation, this is a moment that calls for a bold and ambitious voicing of where our desired future lies and how we will get there.��

The 2012 conference, to be held in New York City, Oct. 5-7, is an occasion to reflect critically on the shared predicaments of democratically oriented, cultural work in higher education and community-based organizations; to articulate languages and practices of possibility; and to develop and strengthen cross-sectoral networks committed to moving such work forward.��

The conference, co-hosted by Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute at Columbia University, New York University and The New School, is grounded in approaches and experience of the arts, humanities and design drawn from both academic and community knowledge—which is at once local, national and global.��

The IA conference will explore where campus and community fates are linked and how theory and practice, aspiration and action can be fruitfully entwined. Sessions will embody multiple formats for public engagement that integrate different ways of knowing, foregrounding the role of humanities, arts and design.��Integrating insights from community, education and policy,��three large thematic areas��will be explored: “Full, Equitable Partnerships”; “Linking Diversity and Engagement”; and “Arts, Culture, and Community and Economic Development.”

Imagining America invites work in dialogue with one of the above themes, and in the arc of the conference. The overarching framework of the three-day conference brings together New York City-based programming with initiatives taking place around the country. All proposals should take this framework into consideration and place their own work in dialogue with the locally generated themes.��

Running through all of the above, IA invites sessions that articulate the role of��youth, and welcome a cadre of proposals that do not fit in this framework but nevertheless advance engaged theory and practice through open and critical dialogue with other conference participants.��IA is particularly interested in proposals that contribute to ongoing areas of interest to our members, namely engaged practices in humanities, arts and design as they intersect with: the environment and climate change; public health; incarceration and re-entry; feminism and feminist activism;�� faith/spirituality; and international engagement.��

��for more about conference session themes and formats, or a ��is available for call for participation details��and session formats. The submission deadline is Monday, April 23. The conference submission platform will be available��beginning on March 19 from the IA site.

Based at Syracuse University,��IA is a national consortium of 90 colleges and universities whose mission is to animate and strengthen the public and civic purposes of humanities, arts and design through mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships that advance democratic scholarship and practice.��

For more information, contact IA’s Jamie Haft at 315-443-8765.

“This is a terrific opportunity for our students to experience the international dimension of SU’s vision, Scholarship in Action,” says Cohen-Cruz, who is also the project evaluator for smARTpower. “These are artists of exceptional quality and creativity who want to apply their art to processes around the world that bring more people into expressive culture, and to exchange ideas around challenges they face in their regions.”��

Each SU student is partnered with one or two smARTpower artists and is researching a diversity of topics that illuminate the range of research that underlies international artistic residencies. For example, Sarah Whitehouse, a junior sculpture major,��is helping artist Xaviera Simmons prepare for a residency in Sri Lanka by procuring a language teacher for Simmons through the embassy, and by investigating Sri Lankan cookbooks, historical and contemporary artwork and even the best place to surf. Ali Martini, a junior communications design major,��is examining the construction of kites in different cultures for artist Miguel Luciano, who will be creating kites with young people in a refugee camp in Kenya. Katie Walsh, a sophomore communications design major assisting Duke Riley for a trip to China, is collecting information about a myth underlying the Chinese zodiac that involves artists racing in boats, and is finding places in Shanghai to rent animals and boats for Riley’s re-enactment of the myth during his smARTpower residency.��

The 15 smARTpower artists include both emerging and established artists who work in a variety of media, from site-specific happenings to portable art installations. They were chosen from close to 1,000 individuals who applied from nearly all 50 states and U.S. territories, based on selection criteria that included the strength of the artist’s work and his or her proven communitment to community-based art-making.��

In addition to conducting research for the artists, the students are also researching about the artists they are assisting. For example, artist Chris “Daze” Ellis asked Jacob Crook, a graduate student in��printmaking, to gather images of Ecuadorian plant life, birds and insects for the mural he will create with local participants in Ecuador. Having become familiar with the artist’s body of work, the student was excited to realize that the artist is expanding his palette through the smARTpower program.��

Such an activity strengthens the students’ research skills and broadens their experiences. Janny Crotty,��a graduate student in��documentary film and history,��took on the most time-intensive research by assisting sound-artist Kabir Carter, who has the first smARTpower residency in Istanbul this month. Crotty identified Turkish specialists to collaborate with Carter in workshops on oral history, radio documentaries and acoustics. She notes, “We have to be involved critically and be selective so we’re not sending everything or nothing, but rather choosing carefully and annotating each ‘find’ so the artist can decide whether or not to pursue it.” Evan Bujold, a graduate student in��computer art,��describes artist and deejay Art Jones sending him on “a treasure hunt” for Pakistani music from the ’60s, exposing him to a world of sounds he did not know existed.��

The research is also expanding students’ sense of what constitutes contemporary art, and is demonstrating how artists methodologically approach their art-marking. Sam Raut, a graduate student in computer art researching for artists Rachel Shachar and Seth Augustine’s residency in Venezuela, is impressed with Shachar’s expertise in puppet-making and costume construction, and Augustine’s ease moving among disciplines and media including sculpture, photography, collages and installations. Jenna Lonczak, a sophomore in��communications design assisting MacArthur-winning artist Pepón Osorio, is intrigued that Osorio will use in Nepal a format for community-based arts that includes gathering stories from local people, making art to represent those stories and touring the art so different communities can learn the stories.��

“The framework of the smARTpower program has introduced the class to a whole world of art that is as much about a process open to broad participation as it is about supporting ongoing creativity,” says Cohen-Cruz. “Professor Spitzner and I are gratified to see arts students expanding their sense of what artists are doing in the world today, while directly contributing to a real-life cultural diplomacy effort.”

Bruce Burgett, of the University of Washington Bothell, has been named new chair, and Kim Yasuda, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has become vice chair. New board members are: Sonja Arsham Kuftinec, University of Minnesota; Teresa Mangum, University of Iowa; and John Saltmarsh, University of Massachusetts, Boston.��

“With the board’s growth, Imagining America is poised to enlarge its leadership role in the field of higher education-based democratic engagement,” says Burgett. “The board’s diverse and considerable talents enable us to advocate for Imagining America’s mission with an inclusive range of publics, and support and lead movement-building for the change our consortium envisions.”

Burgett is professor and director of interdisciplinary arts and sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, and director of the UW’s Graduate Certificate in Public Scholarship. As IA’s vice chair from 2008-2011, he was instrumental in developing IA’s . Burgett also co-chaired the 2010 IA national conference in Seattle.

Yasuda is professor of spatial studies in the Department of Art at University of California, Santa Barbara, and is co-director of the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. A board member since 2009, Yasuda has supported the creation of new IA initiatives that represent and animate the work of IA as a national network. She is co-principal investigator of IA’s national campus-community research group, the Community Knowledge Collaboratory, which explores the use of mapping technologies as a pathway to social change.

Kuftinec, professor of theater at the University of Minnesota, has created and published widely on community-based theater, as well as theater as a technique of conflict transformation in the Balkans and Middle East. Her current research focuses on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival under the tenure of Artistic Director Bill Rauch, the co-founder of Cornerstone Theater in Los Angeles. Kuftinec co-chaired the 2011 IA national conference in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.��

Mangum, associate professor of English and director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa, has published articles about the ways scholars in earlier historical periods can undertake engaged teaching and scholarship, including a forthcoming essay in the journal Pedagogy. She is a co-founder of the Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy, which prepares graduate students to be public artists and scholars. Mangum is a participant in IA’s national affinity group of public humanities centers and institutes, IA representative to the founding committee of the national Academy of Community Engagement, and will join the Board’s Strategic Planning Committee.��

Saltmarsh, co-director of the New England Resource Center for Higher Education (NERCHE) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, is the author of numerous publications on democratic engagement, most recently “Higher Education and Democracy” and “To Serve a Larger Purpose: Engagement for Democracy and the Transformation of Higher Education.” He is critically involved in IA’s , as well as in the multi-organizational effort, .��

“I am looking forward to working with these distinguished colleagues to continue to build a mission- and research-driven consortium,” says Burgett. “Board members understand that encouraging innovation and integration of knowledge and creativity to help identify and solve social and political problems through humanities, arts and design is a unique opportunity.”��

Based at Syracuse University,��IA is a national consortium of 90 colleges and universities whose mission is to animate and strengthen the public and civic purposes of humanities, arts and design through mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships that advance democratic scholarship and practice.��

The ongoing project is “Dr. Reverend Ebenezer Abernathy’s Mellifluously, Melodious and Medicative Freedom Revival of Greater Central New York,” or for short, the Dream Freedom Revival (DFR). Directed by IA’s Associate Director Kevin Bott, the DFR is a character-driven, community-based musical theater project that is inspired in part by the 19th-century Evangelical revivals that were prominent in Central New York. The DFR draws on this region’s history and legacy of freedom.

“The guiding ethos of the project is that democracy is driven by those who participate in it,” says Bott. “Our aim is to use popular performance to inspire and encourage a meaningful engagement with real-world issues in Syracuse and the Central New York region. My goal is that the many groups and individuals working on social and political issues see that performance can be used to bring more people directly into the conversations and activities they’re already undertaking.”

The upcoming DFR event will feature a collectively generated performance with original music, lyrics and dialogue. Bott will play a secular “preacher,” Dr. Ebenezer Abernathy, who travels Central New York to celebrate democracy and encourage local participation in the questions that affect the lives of residents. Musical collaborators include Timothy K. Eatman, IA’s research director and assistant professor in SU’s ; Danan Tsan, singer, songwriter and regular performer with Syracuse Opera; Caroline Kim Tihanyi, well-known local singer and songwriter; and Tim Regan, Cazenovia resident and soon-to-be student at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. The “Freedom Choir and Band” will be comprised of a diverse group of campus and community stakeholders that includes local performers and activists, as well as undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty members from SU, Onondaga Community College and SUNY-Oswego.

Following the performance, attendees are invited to stay and converse over refreshments. The performance and conversation will be in English and Spanish, and will emphasize issues of interest to Latinos and Latinas, West Side residents and other Syracuse city residents.

“We are proud and excited to be hosting the first DFR event this Sunday,” says Inmaculada Lara-Bonilla, co-founder of La Casita Cultural Center. “The event will be an opportunity to share our projects and ideas around a compelling cultural experience. The DFR project has already involved a number of local residents in the creation of this first performance, and we trust it will continue to engage community members in creative and participatory ways.”

“The DFR is a unique opportunity to encourage innovation and integration of knowledge and creativity to identify and solve real-world problems through art and humanities,” says Eatman. “We aspire for the project to develop into a model of democratic publicly engaged scholarship and campus-community collaboration that can be a resource to IA’s national network.”

IA will be in residence at SU through 2017. The DFR builds on IA’s 2009-2010 Art-in-Motion project that was led by IA Director Jan Cohen-Cruz. The DFR is planning additional fall performances, each tailored to the specific issues and concerns of the community stakeholders involved. Bott is also planning an SU spring course on DFR in SU’s .

For more information, contact Jamie Haft, communications manager for Imagining America, at (315) 443-8765, jmhaft@syr.edu, or visit Imagining America at ��and the Dream Freedom Revival blog at .