Hi Everyone! I am sorry that this is my first post since October – where has the time gone? Suffice it to say, blogging went to the back burner due to the infinite things going on at MassArt. But I am back with another thought provoking entry, so grab your coffee or tea and indulge your eyes.
About two months ago I met with the manager of a local Mission Hill business who immigrated to Boston from Somalia fifteen years ago. I was there to talk about his experiences with several MassArt exhibits that hung in his coffeehouse, but the conversation quickly shifted to a much more meaningful dialogue around civic engagement and an academic institution’s role confronting public needs. In short, he recalled a neighborhood clean-up drive comprised of “hundreds” of students from a major university in the area. The manager explained the students (and even faculty) were clueless about Mission Hill and the most important aspect of change – relationship building.
There is a major trend in higher education to invest millions of dollars into civic engagement initiatives and collaborations. That is, many institutions typically coordinate programs wherein throngs of students, faculty, and staff members travel en masse to “high risk” neighborhoods and partake in a multiplicity of programs that usually aim to provide services for disadvantaged citizens. This work is noble for a myriad of reasons, but ultimately these agents of change have little knowledge on the fundamentals of community or what a community actually needs, as evidenced in my discussion with the coffeehouse manager; rather, colleges need and seek quantifiable data for funders and grant proposals so, for the most part, the term “civic engagement” translates into nothing more than a numbers game. If aggressive action is not the right ingredient to building community, than what is? There is no easy answer to that question, but based on my experiences working with the Mission Hill and lower Roxbury neighborhoods, I can say that relationships are a big part of the solution.
MassArt wrote a MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA grant so that the office I work in could build and cultivate relationships in the neighborhoods closest to the college. The Center for Art and Community Partnerships believes that MassArt can exercise better stewardship of place when strong, reciprocal relationships exist. So, I have spent the past few months doing exactly that – meeting with community organization leaders, public school principals, and community activists to talk about resources that can be reciprocally shared between neighborhood organizations and MassArt. So, for example, when I met with the executive director of the Tobin Community Center, we not only talked about the needs of the Tobin and ways the MassArt community can align their community work to help address those needs, but we also discussed how the Tobin’s patrons (mainly youth and teens) can come to MassArt and learn and share from our cohort of artists. In this fashion, MassArt students are going out into the community with an understanding they will learn just as much from the people they plan to help. In other words, a sustainable relationship defines and is at the helm of their community-based work, not just a mere timesheet showing how many hours they spent on a project.
My work will be shifting into another related direction once the new year commences. The next step is to take what I learned and help develop the foundation work for MassArt’s upcoming ArtMobile, which I will share more with you about in January’s blog post. How’s that for a tease?
As this year quickly comes to an end, I feel pleased with what I have accomplished vis-à-vis building community relations in such a short time. I’ve learned so much about the idiosyncrasies of Mission Hill’s people, places, and things, that I somehow feel like I am now part of the neighborhood. Above all, I am most happy seeing the college community rolling up their sleeves and learning about acute need in neighborhoods of vast adversity alongside those who need assistance most. This, to me, is the true meaning of being a civically engaged human being.
I want to remind everyone that MassArt's galleries are free and open to the public. Many of the exhibits in the galleries are works from world renowned artists so they are definitely worth your time. You can see the schedules, hours, etc. here: MassArt Galleries
I wish you all a safe and joyous holiday season filled with peace, love, and happiness.
Love,
Jeff
MACC AmeriCorps*VISTA serving at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Jeffrey.Robinson@massart.edu
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