ATHISrt
REA C H
ISSUE:
Art
BEGINNINGS
The College of Humanities Arts and
Sciences’ initiative at 220East began
with an audience engagement series by
the UNI School of Music on October 23.
REA C H
RETHINK GOOD WRITING
Faculty Spotlight:
Professor Adrienne Lamberti
wants you to rethink the
idea of “good writing”
LAST THURSDAY
Final Thursday Reading Series
at the Hearst Center engages
community by ecnouragieng local
writers to express themselves.
GUEST COLUMNIST
Prof. Jonathan Chenoweth talks about
the value of student engagement with
the surrounding community through
musical performance.
ART
CULTURE
BUILDS
COMMUNITY
artreach
artreach
artreach
R E A C H
ART
ART
R E A C H
ArtReach is a project of the
University of Northern Iowa’s
College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences
R E A C H
www.uni.edu/artreach • artreach@uni.edu • 319-273-2725
FROM
THE
EDITOR
A UNI and
220East
Partnership
220 East is an “incubator space” in the broadest sense of
the word. Located in downtown Waterloo, it is a community
space specializing in sharing conversations, art, and ideas.
Coming together to “incubate” on the very notion of what it
means to be a community. Like 220East , the UNI campus
is also an incubator space. Our faculty and students spend
most of their days engaged in thinking creatively, discussing
intelligently, and growing future leaders. UNI’s new office at
220East seeks to bring these incubators together in creative
1
ways. This newsletter highlights current projects between
campus and community, discusses the idea of “outreach” as
applied theory, and hopes to be a spring board for new ideas.
This is the first in a series of newsletters that are meant
to bring our campus community’s attention to faculty and
students whose courses and projects are going outside the
UNI and 220East
seek to bring
incubators together
university’s walls and shaping the different dimensions of
community engagement.
Reach Art,
Hunter Capoccioni
ArtReach • Issue 1 • University of Northern Iowa
Mini-Concerts
Offered by UNI
UNI and Cedar Valley Chamber Music tie university
and community together at 220 East through
series of mini- concerts by UNI faculty and student
ensembles for the after work crowd.
All Concerts Start at 5:15 pm and last approximately
45 minutes.
Schedule
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November 6th - Sandy Nordahl/Jeffery Funderburk
November 11th- Trio 826
November 13th- UNI Saxophone Quartet
November 20th - UNI Horn Choir
December 4th - UNI Opera Scenes
A minimum $5 donation to support
220East is encouraged for each event.
220EAST
AFTER WORK
University of Northern Iowa • Issue 1 • ArtReach
SPOT
LIGHT
ON
PROF.
ADRIENNE
LAMBERTI
This year, The Association of American Colleges and Universities surveyed 318 business leaders from around the
country about the skills college students need in order
to succeed in today’s economy. Of those surveyed, three
in four employers responded that written and oral communication and applied knowledge in a real-world setting
were vital skills that should be emphasized to produce
the type of employees needed in the modern work environment. The survey also places a value on a Liberal Arts
education and the ability to think creatively and to have
refined problem solving skills.
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Educators applaud the results of this survey; seeing humanities as an educational fundamental. At the same time
there is continued lamenting about the lack of quality in
the writing and critical thinking skills found in 21st century
students. Some point to generational laziness, standardized testing, or at the short attention spans of a modern
society. While there is most likely some truth in those
points, Prof. Adrienne Lamberti brings another perspective to this issue. As director of the UNI Professional Writing program, she works to place the very notion of writing
and communication into a broader context of what “good”
writing actually means. For Prof. Lamberti, writing doesn’t
exist in a vacuum. It is about human expression, understanding the idea of focus and flow, and most importantly
a fundamental knowledge of audience or cliental.
ArtReach • Issue 1 • University of Northern Iowa
A graduate of Iowa State University, Prof. Lamberti points
to the ISUComm program as a model for how universities can begin a new cross-departmental relationship
with written, oral, visual, and electronic communication.
Called the WOVE program, it is imbedded in all colleges,
departments, and programs at the ISU campus. WOVE is
designed to facilitate crosstalk and understanding across
disciplines. “I would like everyone on campus to enjoy
having a conversation about what counts as good writing”
says Lamberti. “I don’t think people think of that was important... that it is solely an English department thing. No
its not! If a chemistry student can’t communicate about
chemistry to non-chemists for example, then that is a
responsibility we all need to think about and pay attention to.” Additionally Lamberti can also understand the
student’s fear of writing. “If one faculty’s view on communication is different from another then that is an opportunity to discuss who we are as teachers. If a student gets
what counts as “B” level communication in your class and
then “C+” level communication in another, then that student is confused, and discouraged and will subsequently
view writing as a mystery, mind game, and a hassle” says
Lamberti. “Those are conflicting messages that have so
many students running away from courses that have
strong writing components...so if teachers got together
and compared notes, I think it would soothe a lot of that
anxiety and fear that students have.”
Students in the program take a personality test (which
you can take here) that allows Prof. Lamberti to place
students into teams with complimentary strengths. The
program also places students with real world clients in a
role as communication specialists. For Prof. Lamberti this
is about more than simply providing the types of experiences sought by employers. “If you go through college
where the majority of your written work is targeted towards the instructor and the dominant purpose is to get as
A, then that mindset will be what you have when you are
a professional. My students have a lot to do with not only
working with, but also educating their clients, because
their clients often still think that everything is written for
them in their heads. They might think something like ‘I like
green, therefore all my documents should in in green’ and
my students have to explain to them why green might not
work to reach the audience they are trying to target.. and it
a carry over of that academic mindset. We are kept in our
own heads when we are writing that stick with us when
we become a professional and my students help
break them of that.” Lamberti emphasizes that
good writing and information design is so often
misunderstood. She emphasizes that it is about
human relationships and client management
that goes well beyond what she calls “teacher,
student, period” dynamic.
WHAT HER
STUDENTS
THINK:
At the same time, Prof. Lamberti wants the
business community to have a better understanding of what professional writing is as well.
“I would especially like people to know that is
more than putting together a pretty flier. If you
have a thoughtful communications consultant
working with you, it can facilitate the way you
operate, it can lend credibility to your work,
promote your mission, garner cliental for you.
Thoughtful and careful professional level communications are so much more than window
dressing and I don’t think a lot of people know
that. They think it is just pulling up a software
program and slapping an image on a brochure.
unless you know how to really think about the
population you are trying to connect with , a
pretty brochure isn’t going to do anything for
your organization no matter how beautiful it is.
If it doesn’t connect with your audience it will be
round-filed and a communication specialist can
help you with that.”
“The classes that I have taken in the Professional Writing Pro-
the greater awareness, confidence, and thoughtfulness that I
gram here at UNI have been some of the most significant of
my undergraduate career because they have impacted me in
ways that are not just limited to the professional documents,
such as brochures and posters, that I have learned to create,
but also include acquiring personal and professional skills that
will be applicable for me in real world contexts. During the
process of learning these skills, I worked with organizations
and individuals both on and off campus, including a church,
CVCMF, and even fellow students. Through these and other
practical experiences in the program, I affirmed the messages
I had been taught in the classroom while picking up creative
and communicative skills, such as listening and responding
tactfully to clients as well as incorporating their ideas into the
final product(s). However, I would say the most influential
aspect of these projects was my personal realization of the
worth of my reasoning and writing in real world contexts and
gained in my writing and in my self thereby.” - Amanda Arp
ADRIENNE
LAMBERTI:
RETHINKING
GOOD WRITING
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University of Northern Iowa • Issue 1 • ArtReach
FINAL
THURS
DAY
READING
Final Thursday Reading Series at the Hearst Center for the
Arts provides a forum for local writers and songwriters to
share their own original work. . Open mic for community
writers begins at 7pm. Authors take the stage at 8pm.
FALL SCHEDULE
Laura Farmer November 21st
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Laura Farmer is an author and director of Cornell College’s Writing Studio. Farmer’s
works have been published in The Iowa Review and The Summerset Review. She also
has a weekly book review in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
Jim O’Loughlin - FTRS Coordinator
“FTRS supports literary culture in the Cedar Valley by bringing regional writers to the
area and by giving all readers and writers a chance to hear from others and let their
voices be heard.”
- Jim O’Loughlin
ArtReach • Issue 1 • University of Northern Iowa
CHAMBER MUSIC AS
SERVICE LEARNING
BY DR. JONATHAN CHENOWETH
Since 2011, UNI students enrolled in chamber music studies have
been able to elect an option in which they devote their efforts to
the selection, arrangement and rehearsal of music specifically
for presentation to seniors at local elder care facilities. In so
doing they are expanding their understanding of musicianship
to include skills and sensitivities that lie outside the traditional
precincts of their art. They are developing life skills just as surely
as they are becoming better ensemble musicians, deepening
their relationship with music as they initiate new relationships
with strangers.
This alchemy of civic responsibility and personal growth
is an example of service-learning, a learning strategy that
draws upon students’ knowledge and skills and engages their
critical thinking to address a problem in the community. Literally millions of students in higher education participate in
service-learning projects each year, addressing needs in housing,
literacy and environmental sustainability. Service-learning can
yield rewarding, even transformative musical experiences for
student and faculty participants as they experience the usefulness of music, its effectiveness in addressing various human
needs. In addition to making a therapeutic contribution through
music, the goal is to provide students with a means for discovering—and vehicle for realizing—a broader purpose in their
music making.
This project was born of two intersecting needs. Simply
put, many music students and infirm seniors share a condition:
their lives are often defined and delimited by their respective
institutions, and they don’t get out much! Obviously, many folks
in residential and care facilities derive great benefit and enjoyment from music, while student musicians profit from the opportunity to share what they do. And although the UNI School
of Music offers numerous public concerts, these occasions for
making music can be somewhat limiting; our habit is to perform in-house concerts, largely for each other, at predictable
times and places in order to satisfy curricular requirements. It
appeared that outreach had the potential to address the isolation and routinization of both groups. Some highlights:
After a 30-minute program and sing-along, students enjoy
conversation with a particularly voluble audience of twelve at
the Cedar Falls Lutheran Home; they quickly learn that fully half
of these seniors are former music educators, a career to which
all four of the student performers aspire.
“Chamber musicians have an
opportunity to demonstrate flexibility
and humility, to apply and integrate
a variety of skills from distinct
components of their training, and to
experience the power of music to
connect and align people across
differences in age and circumstance
and in unfamiliar environments.”
Eighty-four year-old E. recognizes in the
students’ performance a melody that she has
not heard since her husband’s funeral twenty
years earlier. The following week, these students record their performance to DVD as a
memento for her.
A student barbershop quartet finds an
enthusiastic, if mute, fan in D., who nearly seventy years ago sang with a quartet of his own. Prof. Jonathan Chenoweth,
Don’s visiting daughter retrieves a framed UNI School of Music
photograph from his room showing “The
Rusty Hinges” in full voice in the 1940s. Later, we learn that his
group was the inspiration for Meredith Wilson’s “board of education quartet” in his 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man.
While the essential goals and curricular expectations for
the hosting course “Chamber Music” remain the same in a service-learning context, this emphasis places its highest priority
not on coming to terms with particular repertoire or ensemble
configurations, but on connecting people with their identities,
memories, values, emotions, a sense of well-being, and, of
course, with each other. As a result, the focus throughout the
semester is on developing presentation skills more than it is on
learning canonic repertoire. And the performances (sometimes
exceeding ten per semester) are not complete without verbal
and physical interaction with audience members, augmenting
the connections established musically. The changes have not,
in the end, redefined the course so much as they have renewed
and rebalanced it, reinforcing ensemble principles while adding
the dimension of citizenship.
The over-arching lesson is that turning our attention to the
needs of others can have an expansive influence on our musicianship. When we begin by considering the specific needs of a
particular audience, when we let outreach goals set the agenda for ensemble music studies, when we enlist music to offer
refuge, relief, or stimulation to people who need it, especially
individuals who may be limited in their ability to interact fully or
comfortably with the world around them, then we also provide
a means of consciousness-raising for student participants, who
are asked to reflect on their interlocking roles as students, musicians and citizens. We are fortunate that music curricula can
so easily accommodate these opportunities.
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University of Northern Iowa • Issue 1 • ArtReach
ART
R E A C H
University of Northern Iowa
266 Communication Arts Center
Cedar Falls, IA 50614
ART
ART
R E A C H
R E A C H
ArtReach is a project of the
University of Northern Iowa’s
College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences
FORM. RHYTHM. EXPRESSION.
Softer by Lauren Petri
This day was softer.
It breathed daisies down her spine
turned cartwheels in her mouth,
hands tucked and trembled
into the creases of her voice.
She spoke in dogwood
and Braille
and learned to turn words
in her palms before they
were built to speak.
Armistice by Alexandra Bissell
Trampled aluminum cans, torn
nightshirt, shards of plastic
dishes litter the hallway. That last kick
really got her. I told her I knew how to end a war.
And she’ll babysit that stillborn
‘til death does its part and you don’t have to be heartsick
to see it happening. You already know the answer to the question so
don’t ask.
He keeps his lips sewn in a cross-stitch tipsy grin ‘til morning,
playing pretend. Bitch had it coming. Breathless,
she stares at the rag doll lying at the base of the crib. She crawls with
tightened chest
to the bleached bars he had built. She sits,
doll in hand, empty and fixed.
But damaged goods are still goods nonetheless.
And I’m still waiting on breakfast.