Advocacy For The Arts Impacts Community For Festival

The Advocacy for the Arts class with their professor, Linda Donahue, Ph.D.

With less than 15 people in the course, the “Advocacy for the Arts” class hopes to make a big impact on the Lubbock community this semester.

Linda Donahue, Ph.D., is head of the graduate arts administration class, and it’s safe to say she’s excited about the concept of service learning. Before she even sat down at the massive round table in the room, she told her students to begin a discussion about the topic.

Trevor Wise, a graduate student in the Texas Tech Department of Theatre & Dance, knew the answer instantly.

“Service learning is basically real life application or taking what we learn from the educational system and applying it to real applications,” he said. “For example we’ve been working with an elementary school (third, fourth and fifth grade) to help with their theatre education and promoting theatre advocacy. We want them to be excited and involved with the arts.”

Brooke Wood, a graduate student in the Texas Tech School of Music, said she agreed with Donahue that service learning is an important topic to understand in order to grasp the concept of the class. Wood said the students in the class are part of the arts administration on Tech’s campus. She said it is a unique program because many other universities do not offer anything like it.

Chris Kiley, a graduate student in the Texas Tech Department of Theatre & Dance, said another aspect of service learning is reflection. Kiley said it is a good tool because it gives students the opportunity to celebrate successes, be critical where they fell short, and also do a better job of how to approach the next situation that they come across. He described it as an “evolution.” Kiley said it’s more along the lines of learning how to deal with different age groups. He said the class is dealing with very gifted students.

Courtesy of Lubbock Arts Festival.

“They’re really smart, and I think that catches all of us off guard,” said Kiley. “For example, one kid started ranting about Obama Care when we first visited. We were all a little surprised. He was only in the fifth grade.”

Cody Lindley, a graduate student at the Texas Tech Department of Theatre & Dance, said he finds working with the young students rewarding. Lindley said the Advocacy for the Arts class is different from any other class because in other classes you’re turning something in for a grade, and that is the only feedback you’re getting from the professor. He said as a student who has been at a university for six years, it is very exciting to see an actual impact based upon the work you are doing for the class.

Wise said the class is also learning the way cultural policy stands today, and how the education system of the arts exists in America today. He said some of those visuals are not always an optimistic outlook.

“At certain times, in our last 30 years or so, there’s been a number of reasons why the arts have been a politicized topic,” he said. “They’ve become more and more marginalized. When you look at the budget cuts that we face because of the recession, the first thing to go are art programs. Particularly, in the performing arts it’s pretty dismal. We are finding ways we can approach the public systems about these kinds of topics.”

 One of those ways the class plans to do this is to collaborate with the Lubbock Arts Alliance for the 36th Annual Lubbock Arts Festival that is taking place the weekend of April 11 to 13 at the Lubbock Civic Center.

Jamie Rogers, a MFA Arts Administration student in the Department of Theatre and Dance, said to help get the attention of “Techsans”  the Advocacy of the Arts class plans on hosting an event on campus on Wednesday, April 9 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the free speech area by the Student Union Building. Rogers said the class will be handing out free passes to the Lubbock Arts Festival to anyone who shows their Tech ID.

Courtesy of Lubbock Arts Festival.

Wood said it is important for the Lubbock Community to know that the event is for all ages and is also family friendly.

Donahue said the the festival attendance is expected to exceed 31,000 this year.  The event offers visual art, performing art, and children’s art for the very affordable general admission price of $3 for adults and $2 for children under 12.

Randall Rapstine, a MFA Performance & Pedagogy student in the Department of Theatre and Dance, said he and the class are really trying to spread the word about the festival —  especially to Texas Tech.

“The event has gone on for many years, but one of their targets is children and Tech students, faculty, and staff,” Rapstine said. “That is why they asked us to get involved, and for it to be a part of our service learning is because we want to increase the number of Tech students and faculty that attend the event. It’s a really cool festival for the entire community.”