The Michigan Cultural Scene: Collaborations and Partnerships

Rick Knupfer, Ph.D. Executive Director

The word "partnerships" is among those trendy buzz euphemisms of the '90s -- among them "adding value," "win-win situation," "user-friendly" and "thinking out of the box" -- that often gloss over hidden meanings and mean not much at all -- or worse, mean something contrary to what they imply. It's hard to find the real meanings behind the layers of "spin."

Meaning -- in the relentless media- and cyber-stream of factual information ("factoids"), fabrication, hearsay, innuendo and other "sound bytes" without context -- depends entirely on the "spin." Thus, in the Age of Spin Control (a euphemism that itself "morphed" from the antiquated press -- then public -- relations), most often "adding value" really means someone profits and someone else loses; "win-win situation" means two parties profit while someone else loses; "user-friendly" means "programmer-friendly," and "thinking out of the box" means "you're in the box, but I'm out of it."

Likewise, "partnerships" can mean just about anything you want it to, especially if you're the one calling the shots. Because money talks, foundations depicting "partnerships" with communities are in reality using funds as the carrot and the stick to get communities to fit a particular program vision. Now that's not bad, as long as both "partners" -­ and the people they serve -- are happy. So grantors often speak of "leveraged" partnerships, using their grant funds as an incentive to shape their mission's programs in the field.

There's a leading and a "teaching" role in this, if you will, that is valuable and important if the grantor is well-stewarded and its strategic planning reflects substantiated needs. It's a better way of meeting needs than the older model of "create the program, add grant funds" and hope people will knock on the door, apply and transform themselves as a result.

In recent years, there has been continuing movement away from this relatively "top-down" (yes, it is actually "trickle-down") mode of grantmaking toward more genuinely interactive methods of meeting a mission's needs. In this new kind of "partnership," collaborations form and disperse as missions naturally overlap. The interaction (and the resulting synergy -- my apologies) is a result of two or more organizations finding their missions and delivery mechanisms mutually enhanced by certain activities they carry out as "partners."

In short, they find they can deliver more of their mission at less cost by pooling resources and strategies in various forms of collaboration. What we end up with is that buzz-iest euphemism of them all, "something larger than the sum of its parts."

A small but vital organization with a mission as big as Michigan Humanities Council's (serving the Michigan public) functions best as a catalyst and a match-maker between community needs and Michigan's cultural resources. Because we cannot serve "the Michigan public" on our own, we are a catalyst. We deliver programs and funds for those programs to community cultural organizations who, in turn, are the ones that reach the Michigan public. When their doors are open, ours are.

Thus, our mission is effective only when we are enhancing their mission. And to function in the catalytic role most effectively, we are match-makers because we must be able to find, recruit and line up those resources -- from scholars and exhibits to reading and discussion programs, curriculum enhancements and media, to name a few -- and then market them to the ever-shifting dynamic of community needs.

This role demands an ongoing active -- not passive -- relationship with both the cultural resources and the communities needing them. It requires a vibrant, highly interactive network of both resources and communities.

We can't do any of this on our own. We need partners, both at the statewide level and in communities. And the great thing is that our partners need us for the same reason -- to enhance their own mission objectives. We help colleges, museums and other organizations with substantial cultural assets do "outreach," for example, when we line up their resources with local needs, thus meeting the mission objectives of both.

We can provide funding stimulus for such connections, and we can create channels of access between these resources and Michigan communities. We can help our statewide partners, just as they help us, enliven the community cultural connections that serve us all ­- both cultural service providers and communities. In this issue, you'll find some of the many examples of such active partnerships and collaborations that help us and our partners reach common objectives. Here, I want to focus on what's next with our growing network of statewide collaborations; in our next newsletter, I'll give examples of community-level collaboration we hope to stimulate through such partnership development, resources and funding in the future.

Center for Great Lakes Culture

Michigan Humanities Council is a founding partner with the Michigan State University College of Arts and Letters, MSU Museum, MSU Libraries Collections and the Great Lakes Archaeology Consortium at MSU in establishing the first Center for Great Lakes Culture.

The center is dedicated to the understanding and interpretation of the cultural history and expressions of the diverse peoples, traditions and customs of the Great Lakes region and the region's interactions with the world through research, instruction, collection development and access, public programs (conferences, workshops, exhibitions, institutes, lectures and classes) and internet communication, both at MSU and throughout the region. Development of the center will formalize connections among Great Lakes-related activities on campus and will be a catalyst for new linkages among disciplines, themes, regional cultural institutions and individuals and communities in the Great Lakes region. Its agenda will be established and overseen by campus, state and regional partners in culture and scholarship.

'Imagining America'

"Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life" is a new national consortium of colleges, universities and cultural institutions dedicated to supporting the civic work of university artists, humanists and designers. It will foster a range of programs that enrich the public life of communities.

"Imagining America" will build partnerships between faculty scholars and artists and schoolteachers, museum professionals, public agencies and grassroots community groups. It is committed to 1) supporting sustainable programs for collaborative efforts by faculty in the arts, humanities and design and community leaders, and 2) changing the way universities practice and value creativity and the way in which they are understood by the public.

"Imagining America" plans three initial programs linked by annual conferences, workshops, newsletters and the Internet:

• project grants for university-public partnerships;
• campus and community collaborations in design and planning, and
• major artists' residencies for creating new work about the world shared by the academy and the community.

The goal is to enrich civil society in America by powerful new alliances between faculty members and their fellow citizens. "Imagining America" was launched in March, 1999, at the White House Conference co-sponsored by the University of Michigan, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the White House Millennium Council. It is housed at the University of Michigan.

The mission of "Imagining America" has significant overlap with that of Michigan Humanities Council and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, and we have been working with the University of Michigan to convene a cultural conference in Michigan to bring together leaders in higher education, culture and communities to address ways to advance its important agenda in Michigan.

The Michigan Culture Network

Michigan Humanities Council, together with H-Net: The Humanities and Social Sciences On-line at Michigan State University and statewide cultural service providers, is currently in the planning stages for launching an all-state on-line network linking cultural organizations and communities with statewide cultural resources. This significant, interactive on-line project has already received a substantial boost from Michigan Culture Link (our partnership's current and growing arts and humanities web site), from strategic planning in communities and with cultural organizations for identifying the needs the network can address and from statewide cultural service providers interested in participating. Stay tuned!

We're happy to be a part of such invigorating partnerships -- and to be a part of your own community's ongoing cultural development.

A campaign advertisement, created as part of a joining promotional effort of the Council and Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

Collaborations -- It's How We Do Business!

Our long-standing grants programs are, in effect, collaborations of this statewide organization (whose mission is to extend humanities activities and content into Michigan communities) with local, regional, state and special interest nonprofit organizations that want to encourage public examination of some aspect of the human experience, heritage, culture and learning.

The Council's most recent collaborative connections are focused on both short- and long-term goals geared to our mission and those of our partners. They provide a sampling of how we're going about fulfilling our objectives:

Arts and Humanities Cultural Partnership

With funding and partnership vision from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) and overseen by an arts and humanities steering committee, Michigan Humanities Council offers:

• The Arts and Humanities Touring Program is truly a Michigan success story. Begun in 1998, the combined program provides grant support to schools and nonprofit organizations to help underwrite the costs of hosting performing and visual artists or humanities interpreters to present their programs or works to Michigan audiences. In fiscal 1999, the program invested more than $125,000 that provided about 550 "live" programs to 185,000 youth and adults. bringing artists and humanities interpreters to schools and community organizations throughout the state;
• Michigan's Great Outdoors Culture Tour, offering summer arts and humanities programs in northern Lower Michigan and Upper Peninsula local, state and national parks, recreation areas and other cultural sites in 1998 and 1999, forged new partnership relationships with state and national natural resource agencies while serving 12,000 tourists and residents of underserved areas of the state; n Funding for Michigan Radio's award-winning Arts and Humanities Radio Project, bringing listening audiences into the studios, stages, lecture halls and other locales where the state's artists, cultural interpreters and tradition bearers do their work and featuring vignettes about arts and humanities activities and events statewide;
• With H-Net -- the Humanities and Social Sciences On-line at Michigan State University -- initiation of a rapidly growing constellation of web site activities as part of Michigan Culture Link, which includes on-line directories, curriculum materials, audio features from Michigan Radio and a statewide cultural events calendar (http://miculturelink.h-net.msu.edu), and
• The new "Arts and Humanities ­ adding balance to our lives" statewide promotional campaign is designed for local community organizations' use in a variety of formats to celebrate the role these elements of cultural Michigan play in our everyday lives.

Michigan Historic Preservation Network

A substantial and growing collection of educational materials on historic preservation from the Michigan Historic Preservation Network (MHPN) is now available through the Council's Resource Center under a collaborative agreement between the two statewide organizations. MHPN's education committee pursued the arrangement to give them an educational outreach opportunity that had not been previously available due to limited staffing and budget for distributing resource materials of the largely volunteer organization.

Videotapes and print materials from MHPN such as "American Legacy: The Work of the National Register of Historic Places," "Architectural Styles in Michigan" and "The Michigan Historic Preservation Network: Celebrating Preservation" are being loaned to the Council by MHPN for inclusion as Resource Center directory offerings in the "Preservation I: Architecture and Land Use Studies" category and are being publicized in this newsletter and on the web site as well as in MHPN's Network News. The two organizations are also looking into potential for expanding the number of historic preservation speakers available as resource persons in the Arts and Humanities Touring Program directory and the Council's scholars directory.

Michigan Association of Community Arts Agencies

Collaborations with the Michigan Association of Community Arts Agencies (MACAA) include exploring database platform development through H-Net: The Humanities and Social Sciences On-line at Michigan State University to continue creation of an on-line directory of Michigan cultural organizations and resources. This database will be one of the main underpinnings for development of a statewide culture network. The work is expected to lead to announcement of additional network partners.

Involvement with MACAA also led to participation this summer in a "Michigan team" at the Midwest Rural Arts Forum in Wisconsin and planning by the team to host the 2000 event in Michigan at which a greater presence of state humanities councils from the region will be a Council priority.

Michigan Barn Preservation Network

Collaborating with the Michigan Barn Preservation Network (MBPN) has added to the success of this year's "Barn Again!: Celebrating an American Icon" traveling exhibit tour, sponsored by the Council. MBPN President Jack Worthington and network members are lending their expertise and interest to assist host institutions around the state with local programming related to the exhibit, serving as guest speakers, hosting information booths and helping to transport the exhibit to some of the seven sites around the state. MSU Museum scholar Terry Shaffer, an MBPN member, is the project's scholar and is participating in local exhibit-related activities.

MSU Museum Traveling Exhibits Program

A new collaboration with the Michigan State University Museum Traveling Exhibits Program which is being finalized this fall will assist the Council with distribution of its traveling exhibits. Like the Council's arrangement with the Michigan Historic Preservation Network, this will result in joint promotional efforts for the museum's and the Council's exhibits via our newsletters, web sites and at teacher workshops. A listing of available exhibits will be included in the Resource Center pages of our web site (http://mihumanities.h-net.msu.edu) when the agreement is final. Contact Michael Pankow, resource center coordinator, at 517/372-7770 for further information.

Michigan Music Education Multicultural Committee

A collaboration with the Michigan Music Education Multicultural Committee led to that group's preparation of music materials and lesson plans to supplement the Council's ROADS Culture Kit on African History and Cultures. Music materials in the kits now include general music, middle and high school choral, and elementary, middle and high school instrumental subjects, featuring African music and instruments. African Culture Kits with the new music supplements are available for loan from the Resource Center. They will be featured at the 55th Midwestern Music Conference in Ann Arbor in January, 2000.

Nine Mini Grant Awards Announced

• "Tools for Creative Expression" - The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra will extend musical concepts and live musical performance into the core curriculum of third- and fourth-grade students in the Kalamazoo Public Schools during the current school year.
• "Russia Redefined: A Russian Couple Talks About Home" - Mid-Michigan Writers, Inc., of Pinconning, will host a husband and wife team of visiting lecturers from Kirtland Community College in early October to give residents of northern Bay and Arenac counties to insights on Russian life in the 1990s.
• "Places, Faces & Automobiles: A Historical Master Plan for Southwest Detroit" - Southwest Detroit Business plans a one-day conference in November for community cultural representatives and humanities scholars to discuss the area's ethnic, labor and transportation heritage as a preliminary step for developing a historical master plan for the community.
• "Brian and Andrea Pinkney: The Marriage of Art and Literature" - A Muskegon Museum of Art-sponsored exhibition and lecture series for school groups on African-American cultural and historical books written and illustrated by an award-winning husband and wife team.
• "Summer of Sports Planning Symposium" - Planning for a multi-site exhibition in summer, 2003, on the history of sports in the state involving seven Michigan history museums in interpreting different aspects of sports, organized by the Michigan Historical Museum.
• "Hemingway in Seney" - The Seney Historical Society and Michigan Technological University of Houghton will document in a permanent display a 1919 visit of the writer to the Upper Peninsula town which inspired one of his short stories, "The Big Two-Hearted River."
• "Returning the Gift VIII - Honoring Creative Voices: First Nations Theatre 'A Windigo Tale'" - A late October conference at Northern Michigan University focused on cultivation and public appreciation of Native American drama, including performance and discussion of a new play, "A Windigo Tale," by Ojibwe poet-playwright Armand Ruffo.
• "Listening to Life Through the Oral Tradition" - An eight-month series of programs and workshops on storytelling for teachers, librarians and beginning storytellers in southwest Michigan, sponsored by StorySpinners of Grand Rapids.
• "Writers Workshop to Publish a Commemorative History of the Germans in Detroit and Michigan, 1800-2000" - Research and writing activities of the German American Heritage Foundation of Detroit to create an illustrated history of the state's largest ethnic group, the first publication of its kind in 82 years.

'Barn Again!' Drawing Interest on State Tour

The exhibit is currently at the Iron County Museum at Caspian, its only Upper Peninsula venue, through Oct. 2 when it will return to Lower Michigan to the North Berrien Historical Society and Museum at Coloma in Berrien County for an Oct. 11-Nov. 19 run. For a complete listing of "Barn Again!" site events and on-line activities related to the exhibit's tour, visit our web site - http://mihumanities.h-net.msu.edu - and take part in the final months of the Michigan celebration of 1999 as the "Year of the Barn." The site includes activities and reading lists on rural life and barns for youths and adults.

New SITES Exhibit Planned for 2001

The exhibition is adapted from a larger version created by SITES and the National Museum of American History, with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundations. The exhibition presents an historical overview of popular expectations and beliefs about the future from the late 19th through the late 20th century.

Divided into four sections, the exhibition will explore concepts such as "the home of tomorrow" and predictions for the future found in movies, television, magazines, literature and advertising. At times, the exhibition is lighthearted, as with a 1950s living room that can be cleaned with a garden hose. The exhibition features abundant, colorful examples of predictions and inventions that went awry.

Initial planning for Michigan's tour of the exhibit began this summer. In spring, 2000, the Council will solicit applications from museums and libraries in rural communities to host the exhibit and conduct related programming beginning in March, 2001. For more information, contact LuAnn Kern at the Council's Lansing office.

NOTE: A Dec. 15 applicant deadline has been announced since the newsletter went to print. If you wish to host "Yesterday's Tomorrows" between March, 2001, and January, 2002, contact LuAnn Kern, director of grants and education, at lkernmihum@voyager.net or 517/372-7770.

Assistance Needed to Update Culture Kits

If you have a love of these cultures and are looking for a challenging assignment, contact LuAnn Kern at the Lansing office or by e-mail at lkernmihum@voyager.net.

Culture Tour Completes Successful Season

Isle Royale National Park hosted Great Lakes balladeer Lee Murdock as its first program on board the Ranger III for an evening cruise of the Portage Canal between Houghton and Hancock July 8; it joined Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and several cooperating sites of the Keweenaw National Historical Park as well as the state's four National Forests (Hiawatha, Huron-Manistee and Ottawa) who had participated as national partners in the 1998 tour.

Michigan State Parks' participation increased from 15 parks in 1998 to 22 in 1999, accounting for 42 programs between July 2 and Aug. 14. State parks participating were Cheboygan, Harrisville, Porcupine Mountains, Burt Lake, Hoeft, Wells, Baraga, Brimley, Leelanau, Bewabic, Van Riper, Orchard Beach, Onaway, McLain, Fayette, Indian Lake, Mears, Twin Lakes, Lake Gogebic, Aloha, Wilson and Tawas Point.

Presenting evening programs in parks and recreation areas for the tour were artists and cultural interpreters from the Arts and Humanities Touring Program -- storyteller- musician Patty Clark, musician Wanda Degen, historical roleplayer Michael Deren, the Dodworth Saxhorn Band, musician Tom Hodgson, storyteller Jenifer Strauss Ivinskas, the Madame Cadillac Dancers, historian Larry Massie, Murdock, historical re-enacters Project Lakewell, historical interpreters Sarah and Wil Reding, storyteller Corinne Stavish, the White Water string band, musician Neil Woodward and poet Terry Wooten -- as well as four independent presenters -- musicians Kitty Donohoe and Mark Mitchell, writer/essayist Robert Root and Native American presenters Judy and Jim St. Arnold.

Deren and Ivinskas testified this summer about their tour experiences at two Michigan House of Representatives task force hearings on cultural tourism programs in the state, as did tour coordinator Nancy Mathews, the Council's public affairs officer.

Resource Center Adds Materials, Fall Themes

Two other new resources from Council-funded projects are also available:

• "Jookin', An American Afrikana Suite," a video production by Art Spectrum which relates the history and culture of black and social/vernacular dances of the Swing Era (1920s-1970s) that grew out of southern Black American "jook" joints.
• "Word on the Street," a television documentary on video which examines gang life and culture from the two points of view and examines gang members' and humanities scholars' views and insights into music, dance, dress, graffiti and language associated with gangs.

Special emphasis for rentals this fall is given to the following monthly themes and a wide range of resources available under each theme:

October: Hispanic History & Cultures - Resources available include:

"On Fire With Faith" (1991) - 60-minute video/study guide tells the story of Spanish evangelization and incorporation into the Native American lifestyle. Produced by the U.S. Catholic Conference and the Hispanic Telecommunication Network.
• "Fruit of Dreams: The Mexican Cherry Pickers of Traverse City" (1995) - 28-minute video documents the era (1920s-1970s) when Mexican farm workers found work in the cherry orchards of Grand Traverse County, MI, and the eventual mechanization of the cherry harvest. Written, produced and directed by William Jamerson, Forgotten Films & Video.

• "A Matter of Choice" (1990) - 60-minute video takes viewers to the home of the Hopi nation, the oldest continuously inhabited community in America, to examine their struggle to find their place in the modern world. Copy contributed by REMC 3/9 Cooperative Services Consortium of Saginaw Intermediate School District.
• "A Matter of Promises" (1990) - 60-minute video includes interviews with members of the Onondaga, Navajo and Lummi leadership, revealing a wary co-existence within the larger American culture, and documents external and internal forces threatening their national sovereignty. Copy contributed by REMC 3/9 Cooperative Services Consortium of Saginaw Intermediate School District.
• "Winds of Change" (1990) - two 60-minute videos relate the struggle to maintain Indian identity and the very existence of sovereign Indian nations within the United States, including the Hopi, Iroquois, the Navajo and the Lummi. Produced by WHA-TV for Wisconsin Public Television. Copy contributed by REMC 3/9 Cooperative Services Consortium of Saginaw Intermediate School District.

December: Reflecting on the Human Condition: Rights & Wrongs

Choose a total of three resources from any topical theme in the Media Guide that explore issues concerning "The Human Condition: Rights & Wrongs" and receive half price off the total rental charge.

Apply Now! Touring Program Funds Going Fast

If your organization is planning to apply for funds to support a program in the next 12 months (through September, 2000), submit your application now before these grant funds are gone. Applications are found in the back of the touring directory and may be copied for multiple event applications.

Sponsors Directory: An Aid to Cultural Programming

The 42-page guide to program venues and sponsors in eight regions of Michigan is produced by the Council in cooperation with the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs in support of the Arts and Humanities Touring Program. Regional listings are presented on a county-by- county basis, giving names of facilities and contacts, addresses (e-mail, where available) and telephone/fax numbers, performance facility specifications and the number of annual events and budget of the sponsoring organization.