Chautauqua

Though its customary parade to and from the Hall of Philosophy may be absent, the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle’s Recognition Day will carry on anyways, bringing the pomp and circumstance of its predecessors to a virtual setting.

This year, for Recognition Day, the CLSC Class of 2020 will don white outfits and flip open their laptops as the class — also known as “The Visionaries” — prepares to graduate.

“I’ve been part of Chautauqua all of my life,” said Margo Stuart, the president of the Class of 2020. “My father was born here, so I spent my summers in Chautauqua. So it’s important to me to be part of this history, to be part of the CLSC.”

And although the majority of festivities surrounding Recognition Week have been canceled, Stuart said she looks forward to unveiling her class’ banner, which bears the words, “The past, our legacy. The present, our responsibility. The future, our challenge.”

“I would like people, especially women, to view the banner as a walk through our stages of life,” she said. “In our past, the suffragettes fought for the right to vote and to organize protests, and they won.”

In order to honor the suffragettes, graduates — this year totaling 85, in addition to 92 graduates across all six levels of the Guild of the Seven Seals and 10 in the inaugural Vincent Echelon level — were asked to add an element of gold or yellow to their ensembles, and at 3:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Aug. 5, on the CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch, the CLSC Recognition Day Ceremony will commence, honoring a more-than-a-century-old tradition of reading. Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill will deliver an address to the graduates during the ceremony.

“When we learned that the season was going online, it wasn’t a question for us that the CLSC Recognition Day would go online, and that it would be a priority for us,” said Sony Ton-Aime, Chautauqua’s director of literary arts. “It’s very important for us to honor and celebrate the graduating class.”

The virtual ceremony will strive to imitate its real-life counterpart in as many ways as possible, Ton-Aime said, because “we want graduating from the CLSC to feel the same as it has for the last 100 years.”

“The ceremony is quirky and charming, and it’s really what draws a lot of people’s attention to the CLSC here on the grounds,” said Stephine Hunt, manager of the CLSC Octagon. “But we’re hoping that with this virtual ceremony, we’ll reach a wider audience than would otherwise be possible.”

Hunt said the CLSC has attained such longevity and importance in part because of the values of the Chautauquan ideal.

“We started out as a degree-granting program mostly for women who were looking to get a position as a teacher or a secretary in townships, as people moved westward in the U.S.,” she said. “Once we stopped being that correspondence degree program, I think it’s the Chautauquan spirit that has really fostered a zeal for lifelong learning.”

For 2020, Hunt said Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was chosen as the class honoree, because “she’s celebrated as a visionary and an inspirational woman.”

Chautauqua Literary Arts, housed in the Department of Education, chooses nine books of literary merit for each CLSC summer season, Hunt said, that address the themes of the week as well as the theme of the year — which, for 2020, was “This Land.”

“The books need to cover the literary and scientific fields that are in our name,” Hunt said. “Our goal is for these books to continue to encourage our members to pursue lifelong learning, through a love of literature. I think the CLSC has continued in part because of that Chautauquan spirit, which really propels people to continue lifelong learning.”

Hunt said that the class attributes and symbols are decided the summer before graduation in class formation meetings.

“We’re now in the process of forming the Class of 2021,” she said. “So if anyone is interested in graduating next summer, now is the time to take part in those decisions. They’ll really inform the creation of the next banner and everything the class stands for and celebrates.”

Geof Follansbee knew Chautauqua Institution needed Old First Night this year more than ever before. 

As a sixth-generation Chautauqan and the Institution’s vice president of advancement, Follansbee felt that the celebration was too integral to the summer season to skip, even when the Institution’s board of trustees voted unanimously to move all programming online in May. The celebration may not look the way it always had — but Follansbee and the executive team worked to reconstruct the annual celebration online. 

“I don’t know if 10 people are going to watch or 500,” Follansbee said. “I hope that people, in what is a difficult time for sure, see this as a positive step forward for Chautauqua. This is an optimistic moment and optimistic, brief little program that says we are 146 (years old), and we’re looking forward to 147 and way beyond that.”

Follansbee will kick off the celebration livestream at 7 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 4, on the CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch. The program will include remarks from President Michael E. Hill, musical performances, and traditional practices like the drooping of the lilies and the roll call. 

The roll call will be conducted by eighth-generation and lifelong Chautauquan Dick Karslake, who has emceed this practice for the past three decades.

“What’s supposed to happen is that we will run two roll calls. The first one is the number of years that you have been coming to Chautauqua,” Karslake said. “I remember growing up at Chautauqua, how thrilled I was to stand for the number of years (I had been attending), but more importantly in my case — the number of generations (your family has been attending the Institution), which is the second big roll call.”

The roll call typically involves physical audience interaction in the Amphitheater. But this year, audience members can participate through an on-screen poll during the livestream. 

The Old First Night celebration will also welcome remarks from Bill and Debbie Currin, volunteer co-chairs of the 2020 Chautauqua Fund.

“The importance of the Chautauqua Fund is that it is the main philanthropic base for the Chautauqua Institution,” Debbie Currin said. “The gate passes, the (revenue) that comes in from other Chautauquan properties do not pay for the whole season, all the speakers and performances. It’s imperative that the Chautauqua Fund be very strong and lend support to make up the difference in this year, more than ever.”

In a traditional year, philanthropy accounts for somewhere between 20% and 25% of the overall coffers. This year, we’re relying on it to be around 54%,” Downey said. “We’re much more reliant on philanthropy this year than we’ve ever been in the past. Our revenue from ticket sales from parking and other revenue generators (like the golf course, hotel and bookstore) is taking a hit.”

The Currins will draw the audience’s attention to the chance to have their donation doubled. This year, the Edward L. Anderson, Jr. Foundation is matching every donation or pledge to the 2020 Chautauqua Fund up to $500 per donor that is made between Aug. 1-10, until funds are exhausted. 

“It should inspire a number of people to think, ‘Oh gosh, as opposed to giving $10, maybe I’ll give $25, (but actually give) $50. Or, I’ll give $50 and it’ll be $100.’ Hopefully, it will inspire a few people to increase their donation during a special week,” Bill Currin said. 

This match opportunity comes in a year where donations are increasingly essential. Tina Downey, the director of the Chautauqua Fund, pointed out that the reliance on donations for the 2020 season has doubled. 

“In a traditional year, philanthropy accounts for somewhere between 20% and 25% of the overall coffers. This year, we’re relying on it to be around 54%,” Downey said. “We’re much more reliant on philanthropy this year than we’ve ever been in the past. Our revenue from ticket sales from parking and other revenue generators (like the golf course, hotel and bookstore) is taking a hit.”

The Chautauqua Fund underwrites lectures, worship services, youth programs and more at the Institution. If a donor wishes to pledge their gift to a certain program, Downey said that the Fund will honor that. Otherwise, the Institution will allocate those funds where they deem necessary.

“I cannot stress enough … This year is the year to (donate). We have to be successful this year to ensure Chautauqua’s continuation,” Bill Currin said. “(The community) have stepped up. Some people have increased their giving, some people are on the fence right now. We’re encouraging (those on the fence) to please donate. We are well along the way to reaching the goal, but you don’t reach the goal until you reach the goal.”

Every Wednesday and Friday since June 16, dozens of red-T-shirt-clad, smart-phone-wielding gardeners have peppered Chautauqua Institution’s gardens. 

The mix of Chautauqua County Master Gardeners and Bird, Tree & Garden Club members gather to inventory each plant in the Institution’s dozens of public gardens: the flowers, shrubs, vines, trees, ground cover and more. 

On their devices, volunteers log the individual plants by plant type, scientific name, state of growth, and more. This information, along with photos of each plant, is compiled into a master spreadsheet of the plant life on the grounds.

BTG President Angela James describes this plant census as a “fact-finding mission” for Betsy Burgeson, supervisor of gardens and landscapes at the Institution. 

“We want to know: What are the assets that the Institution has purchased or what are the assets that we can quantify and qualify (how much it all costs)?” James said. “That’s why we differentiated the various types of grasses, the various vines, (and) the ferns since there’s a bajillion of them.”

Burgeson sees this as more than just as assets inventory — compiling this data will allow her to streamline plant care. Having this information at her fingertips will allow her to prepare and strategically manage plants in the case of an invasive bug species, harmful fungi, or species-specific disease. 

“From a personal and supervisor management standpoint, just being able to know where all the types of a particular plant are (means that) if I know somebody really good at taking care of (a specific plant), I can send them to do that,” Burgeson said.

The volunteers completed their first round of inventory about a month into the project. But, with 25 gardens covered by July and nearly 300 types of perennials logged already, the work is only beginning. 

“The cool thing about the plant census is that we’ve done the first pass,” James said. “We’ve been to every single garden, and now we’re going back because we look at three characteristics: is this plant emerging, in full bloom, or is it spent?”

The census will continue until around late September, once plants begin to wither as Western New York enters autumn. In the offseason, Burgeson will scrub and organize the data for accuracy. In the spring, volunteers will cover the grounds once again and start tracking garden growth from the first sprout.

Burgeson will use this data to map out the lifespan of plants. If someone is planning a visit to see a certain kind of greenery, Burgeson can help strategize the best time to visit. James can also take this information and enrich the local flora database already on BTG’s website. 

From an ecologist’s standpoint, this information can help track environmental and growth patterns annually. 

Plants are not equipped for all climates — so ecologists divide different regions into hardiness zones based on their environment — factoring in temperature extremes, precipitation, and seasons. Plants are then assorted into the various zones according to their needs. 

With climate change, these long-established hardiness zones are beginning to shift north. The United States Department of Agriculture has classified Chautauqua County as zone five for the past 30 years — but a report from The New York Times speculates that the same space will be classified as zone six, approaching zone seven, in about 30 years. 

Bugeson and BTG’s meticulous inventory will allow them to watch this change in real time. 

“What they’ve been doing is taking pictures as (plants) bloom (to be able to) see when things are blooming each year,” Burgeson said. “It’ll be neat to compare, because the past couple years, for example, the milkweed — one year it bloomed on May 16. This year it didn’t bloom until almost the end of June.”

BTG sprung into action to start this project after the Institution announced it would move all of its 2020 programming online in May. They knew that their typical summer would not translate well to a virtual format, so they wanted to utilize the free time they found themselves with. 

“Typically, BTG offers 90 programs a summer: lectures about the natural world, guided discovery tours, or the House and Garden Tour — boots on the ground, we’re all over the place,” James said. “But obviously since COVID came, there is nothing on the grounds. We thought we could do something better with our time than trying to figure out how to work with all our lecturers and guides to put stuff on Zoom.” 

With Master Gardeners pouring in to help, James said it was a great opportunity to make connections. 

“We reached out to the Cornell Cooperative Extension, and they have a whole group of Master Gardeners in Chautauqua County, so we invited them to come be part of the census,” James said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to connect with a group that we probably haven’t connected with, even though we have something completely in common.”

Burgeson echoed James’ sentiment, and said she is grateful that all the volunteers were able to connect over a shared passion and help the Institution. 

“It’s a great project for a year where it gives you something to look forward to,” Burgeson said. “Gardening always gives you something to look forward to. I really am thankful for what (the volunteers) have been doing and all the possibilities that are opening up, as well.”

On a typical summer day in Chautauqua, neighbors retreat from the sun under the covered porches of Victorian homes. There, family, friends and acquaintances talk and laugh about whatever comes to mind — nostalgic stories from the grounds, that afternoon’s lecture, or burning issues in the national news. 

But summer 2020 is not a typical summer. 

Springtime erupted with the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses, schools, and institutions had to shut their doors until further notice. In May, the Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustees, nearing its summer season with no light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, voted unanimously to cancel its in-person season and instead host its programming online. 

On top of it all, the United States faced a moment that would turn its already-shifting society upside-down. On May 25, 2020, an unarmed Black man named George Floyd was suffocated in the street by a Minneapolis police officer after his arrest for suspected forgery. Footage of this incident, marked with Floyd’s plea “I can’t breathe,” circulated the internet and painted the news. 

The Black Lives Matter movement, a movement sparked from a 2013 Facebook post, began to dedicate its work to find justice for Floyd. People who weren’t typically interested in the BLM movement were faced with the statistics that Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people. Floyd’s story was not one-of-a-kind. 

Erroll B. Davis Jr., president of the African American Heritage House at Chautauqua, pointed to this phenomenon. 

“When you look at the situation of the police, I think the general thinking has been that there are a few bad apples,” Davis said. “Now I think the thinking, after the George Floyd incident, is that this whole tree might be poisonous.”

Americans everywhere knew this was a trend, but the question remained: What do we do now?

Most people, after George Floyd was murdered, went inwards to themselves, in their own hearts, and their own families and their own friends groups. We thought we would follow the same path of looking inward. Look at what’s going on in your own heart, in your own head around these issues,” Rozner said. “Our mission called us to create some platform for this (conversation). If we were physically on our porches together, there would be lots of those conversations happening organically and the idea was to try to replicate that online.”

Some turned to social media, joining in on hashtags like #BlackoutTuesday in an attempt to amplify Black voices. In all 50 states, Americans took to the streets for days upon weeks of consecutive protests — Portland, at the time of this article, has surpassed 50 days of protest. 

No matter the action, everyone fighting racism had to face a degree of personal reflection. What am I doing that is racist? What can I do to be actively anti-racist? What can I do to help create a more just society?

This reflection, and these conversations inspired Shannon Rozner, the Institution’s chief of staff and vice president of strategic initiatives. In her eyes, Chautauqua’s staple front-porch discussions are needed now more than ever. 

“Most people, after George Floyd was murdered, went inwards to themselves, in their own hearts, and their own families and their own friends groups. We thought we would follow the same path of looking inward. Look at what’s going on in your own heart, in your own head around these issues,” Rozner said. “Our mission called us to create some platform for this (conversation). If we were physically on our porches together, there would be lots of those conversations happening organically and the idea was to try to replicate that online.”

Rozner reached out to Davis with the idea to create a dynamic, conversational platform to encourage Chautauquans to discuss racism. On July 16, they announced The Mirror Project. 

The Mirror Project has a purposefully simple construction: the Institution, in collaboration with AAHH, poses prompts to the community online as a way of sparking discussion and personal reflection. Any Chautauquan who feels compelled to share their thoughts can do so through the website, or on social media. 

“Hopefully, an individual may gain confidence to put their thoughts and vulnerabilities out online. They also may get comfort from seeing the thoughts and vulnerabilities of others,” Davis said. “We want a dialogue around the issue of racism and systemic racism, and we want people to understand history.”

Posts and comments will be monitored for major themes. The issues that commonly discussed or inquired on will be addressed. Two times throughout the season the Institution will welcome someone with experience on that particular issue to host a discussion with community-submitted questions. That first discussion is set for 3:30 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 3, and will be led by the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, former director of religion at Chautauqua Institution and senior advisor to the president and James T. and Berta R. Laney Chair in Moral Leadership at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. 

The responses to The Mirror Project will also drive what prompts are proposed. Davis and Rozner said they strived to create a democratic platform. 

“People don’t just want to be talked at. People want to take what they hear and do more with it,” Rozner said. “That is universally true across the Chautauqua experience, and we’ve been hearing that for years. We are making a concerted effort across the organization to help create opportunities for people to do more with what they learn here. This is one example.”

This project was in part inspired by the “cross-cutting imperative” of decisive action on issues of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA), as outlined in the Institution’s strategic plan, 150 Forward. Rozner said that in this case, diversity means more than demographic. Institution leadership wants to see diversity of ideas in the project. 

“There’s a concern that we won’t get a diverse set of thoughts and opinions. We really want diversity of thought here. We want it to be a dialogue and a conversation,” Rozner said. “Sometimes people see a trend and they’re afraid to say something that is sealed outside the trendline. I don’t want people to feel that fear. I want people to feel comfortable engaging from where they are in this journey.”

When church services in Western New York started to transition to online platforms as COVID-19 shuttered places of worship this spring, local pastors looked to Zach Stahlsmith as their gateway to the internet. Which felt great, he said, only he didn’t have all the answers.

Recording with a phone seemed easiest, but the video turned out pixelated, the sound muffled. Facebook Live was crashing, every attempt a “hit or miss.” Stores were closing one by one, the servers out of stock.

Perhaps, Stahlsmith said, it would always be about the “weighing.” 

“I think what we all wanted was perfection right out the door,” he said. “We wanted familiarity, but what we found was that we couldn’t have it all. The priority became to pick what we couldn’t live without and do without the rest of it.”

Stahlsmith has worked as an audio-visual technician at Chautauqua Institution for the past seven years — as a member of the Woods Crew, he is a summer staple zipping across the grounds in his golf cart. A recent graduate of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Stahlsmith has also presided over two Week Four morning devotional services. In early March, however, he extended his assistance beyond the Institution, this time to local churches looking to reinvent their services as the COVID-19 pandemic “took its toll,” Stahlsmith said. 

Some pastors had too much equipment, others not nearly enough, according to Stahlsmith. Depending on what was available, he helped with YouTube uploads, Facebook livestreams and even radio broadcasts.

“It just felt nice to be able to do something for other people,” Stahlsmith said. “I am still trying to enter into the audio-visual field in a full-time capacity, so it has also been fun for me to learn all of these things, while doing it in a way that’s not just to serve me.” 

This is all new for us, too,” Stahlsmith said. “We are building this from the ground up. Things are not going to work perfectly all the time. There have been a lot of patient people, but of course you can’t make everyone happy.”

The Post-Journal published an article detailing Stahlsmith’s work over the past month on March 28, and he said dozens of pastors reached out to him as a result. He has since coordinated with First Covenant Church in Jamestown, Bemus Point United Methodist Church, Park United Methodist Church in Sinclairville, Gerry Free Methodist Church in Gerry, Ross Mills Church of God in Falconer, Findley Lake United Methodist in Findley and Hurlbut Memorial Community United Methodist Church in Chautauqua.

“You don’t want to have a really long service, no matter what church or what their usual tradition is,” he said. “You are basically watching a TV show — you have about 30 minutes before people turn it off. A lot of pastors had to completely reinvent what they’ve been doing for years, even decades.” 

The adjustments — shorter services and empty pews — induced a lot of fear, he said. 

“Fear was a huge thing,” Stahlsmith said. “(The pastors) didn’t know what to do and they didn’t know how to do it. There are a lot of pastors who are not technologically literate, so the concept of not being able to reach out to people directly was terrifying.”

In mid-April, the outreach calmed down as most churches found their “own rhythms,” so when the Institution’s programming started in late June, Stahlsmith said he looked for ways to carry his off-season knowledge into a new unknown.

“The live-streaming and audio techniques were relatively the same, but I also had to learn brand new things, like how to build sets,” he said. “I was lucky this time because I could work with a team instead of doing it all on my own.”

The ups and downs — late announcements, canceled lectures and files in the wrong folders — have felt the same from place to place: “defeating,” Stahlsmith said. But he has no plans to ruminate this time around; instead, he’s been working on a blooper reel to release at the end of the season. 

“If we can’t laugh at ourselves, what can we do?” he said. 

The transition hasn’t been an easy one for everyone involved. Stahlsmith said he understands the frustrations this “baptism by fire” has created for the community, and is constantly working to provide the best possible programming to Chautauquans.  

“This is all new for us, too,” he said. “We are building this from the ground up. Things are not going to work perfectly all the time. There have been a lot of patient people, but of course you can’t make everyone happy.”

Nonetheless, there is “still so much to look forward to,” he said. 

“That weighing will continue, probably forever,” Stahlsmith said. “It’s not perfect, but it’s possible. It’s not our normal, but it’s better than nothing. I know, on the other side of this summer, we will be better than when we came in.”

On July 9, 1848, in Waterloo, New York, five women with no political influence had a simple tea party.

They shared their thoughts with one another. In their time as abolitionists, these women had faced unfair treatment and gendered segregation at abolitionist conventions. They were exasperated. So, over their teacups, they devised an idea: What if we had our own convention?

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848, these women hosted the First Women’s Rights Convention. There, men and women alike joined to speak on the unfair treatment of women in society. They wanted to broadcast their frustration, so they put pen to paper. 

The fact that five unknown women could take action on issues of concern to them and go forth and take risks, I think is a message to all of us,” Swegan said. “The challenge to us who live in the current days, is how do we take action on our belief, put those out in front of the public, take risks associated with it.”

The Declaration of Sentiments was framed as a revised version of the Declaration of Independence, including “and women” to the 1776 statements about the rights of men. It addressed women’s suffrage, women’s right to own property, and women’s equal treatment in society. One hundred people signed the document at the end of the convention — 68 women and 32 men. 

A simple tea party among five regular women sparked the women’s suffrage movement, and ultimately the 150-year overhaul of women’s status in the United States.

One of these women was Mary Ann M’Clintock, who hosted organization efforts in her own home. Her and her husband, Thomas, are among the names signed at the end of the Declaration. Their descendent, Chautauquan Rick Swegan, is working to keep this story alive. 

“The fact that five unknown women could take action on issues of concern to them and go forth and take risks, I think is a message to all of us,” Swegan said. “The challenge to us who live in the current days, is how do we take action on our belief, put those out in front of the public, take risks associated with it.”

Swegan will discuss the history of the beginning of the suffrage movement at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Friday, July 24, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform as a part of the Heritage Lecture Series. 

In 2016, Swegan gave a similar lecture for the Chautauqua Women’s Club, sharing the stories of his M’Clintock ancestors. Jon Schmitz, Institution historian and archivist, and organizer of the Heritage Lecture Series, said that Swegan’s return to the archives series has been in the works for a year.

“(Swegan) had proposed the lecture to me last summer. I liked the suggestion because it tied in with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, but with a different approach,” Schmitz said. 

Rather than looking at the early 20th century suffrage movement itself, Swegan said that he will discuss the pre-Civil War activities that sparked it. He will examine the intellectual antecedents that shaped their ideology, and how many suffragists emerged from the existing abolitionist movement. 

Even as the Institution moved its programming online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Swegan chose to continue with the presentation, but this time as a pre-recorded presentation for CHQ Assembly. 

“Rick was scheduled to speak in the original 2020 Heritage Lecture Series, and while we were not wishing to bring speakers onto the ground, Rick was going to be here for the summer regardless,” Schmitz said. “I am grateful that Rick was able to alter his plans in order to quarantine himself for 14 days before recording.”

This series is made possible with a gift from Jeff Lutz and Cathy Nowosielski.

The Avett Brothers would have performed at the Chautauqua Amphitheater for the third time on July 22, 2020, after speaking at the Hall of Philosophy about their faith journeys earlier that day — if everything had gone according to plan.

The Avett Brothers are scheduled to return to Chautauqua and perform on Aug. 4, 2021. In the meantime, bassist Bob Crawford spoke with Vice President of Religion and Senior Pastor Gene Robinson. Found on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform with the title “Faith on Stage: A conversation with Bob Crawford of the Avett Brothers” and Crawford’s “The Road to Now” podcast, the discussion was a departure from the Interfaith Lecture Series’ Week Four theme, “Ethics in a Technologically Transforming World?”

However, the two did discuss how summer 2020 — with the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump as president, and George Floyd’s death sparking a national and global response to support a historic civil rights movement — has changed their lives and their relationship with their Christian faith.

“In my life, I feel like the times when I am in the middle of the greatest distress, or that I am the most fearful, or I am up against the greatest challenge, that the gold lining in that dark cloud is it just seems easier to be in touch with God,” Robinson said, “or maybe that it’s easier for God to get through to me when I’m already beaten down.”

Robinson cited the situations in the Book of Matthew as an example.

“All the situations laid out there — blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who lack righteousness — all of those are situations that no one would want,” Robinson said. “What makes you blessed if you have them? And it seems to me that when you are in dire straits like some of those situations, God has a real chance to get through to us.”

Crawford agreed with this in reference to when he and his wife discovered that their daughter Hallie was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2011. 

“God was our rock,” Crawford said. “And it was the one piece of rock we could stand on while surrounded by an ocean. And it’s because you’re finally listening. You’re finally listening when you’ve had everything swept out from under you.”

Crawford grew up Catholic and was baptized at a few months old, went through the sacrament of reconciliation and went to church regularly with his family. Crawford said Catholicism was a source of trauma for his father, who grew up with a strict Catholic father of his own.

“Sometimes people wield faith to wield power over someone,” Crawford said.

As a result, out of social pressure, Crawford’s father treated his religion as a set of hoops to jump through. When Crawford received his first communion, his family stopped attending church. As a teenager, Crawford was not as religious. His prayer habit had waned until he and his wife started praying two months before Hallie got sick. And when his father was dying earlier this year, his family believed he was going to live when he was sent to the hospital. But Crawford couldn’t rationalize how his father would pull through.

Crawford said prayer was like a muscle that provides comfort from God. Robinson agreed.

“Sometimes those muscles atrophy, and then when we need to use them, they fail us,” Robinson said.

Crawford said it was hard to complain about his own struggles during a pandemic. Every day, he said he is grateful to be home with his family for so long, while also feeling the weight of uncontrollable outside forces. But it has also forced him to be closer with God.

“Whenever I’m having a bad day, or I’m feeling like my ego has been hurt, or my pride’s been hurt, that’s it,” Crawford said. “You’re seeking joy in something that’s not God.”

Crawford’s daughter, now 10, was diagnosed with her brain tumor at 2 years old after having her first seizure in her crib. When she was first admitted into the hospital, Crawford and his wife started praying all the time, alone and with family and friends who visited Hallie. Crawford called this his conversion. He would say the rosary between three to four times a day.

After Hallie got sick, he spent more time alone praying with the Word like a Protestant. Crawford has added more Catholic-like tendencies in his faith practice since then, though he might end up Episcopalian as the way he approaches his faith shifts over time.

As this is Robinson’s religion, Robinson joked as if to welcome him as an Episcopalian right then.

“Welcome! Come on home,” Robinson said. “You know, sometimes I think people come to church for God and we give them religion instead. … Religion by itself is not like having a relationship with God.”

Crawford is also wary of religion on its own.

“Religion on its own can be used to justify things personally or on a national scale or corporate scale that run contrary to the faith, to the gospel,” Crawford said.

Robinson shifted gears to talk about a lyric from the Avett Brothers’ song, “Live and Die”: “You can say goodbye to how we had it planned.”

Crawford said that Seth Avett wrote that lyric and has said to Crawford that he thinks of Hallie every time he sings it. Crawford said the lyric was about “loving the Hallie that exists, though that Hallie is radically different from the one who was born and given to us by God.”

Crawford said Hallie lost the right side of her brain, doesn’t walk, and has to rely heavily on others for her needs.

“There isn’t a word that expresses how precious Hallie is today,” Crawford said. “ … When I am sad for the things that won’t be for her, and that hurts me and I’m sure it hurts my wife, when those times are upon me, the goal is to be in Hallie’s world.”

There have been bad points in the Crawfords’ journey, like when it was possible that Hallie would never be able to sit up and might have had to rely on a feeding tube for the rest of her life if she survived the cancer. They had to rush Hallie from a rehab facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Nashville, Tennessee, when they discovered her cancer was more severe than they thought. While packing up her hospital room, Crawford started praying to God to make the steps to the car for him because he felt he could not do it himself.

Crawford sometimes prayed that she would simply know joy. And she does.

“She’s one of the most joyful beings you could ever be around,” Crawford said. “She’s also a pain in the butt and demanding. And she’s a diva.”

Robinson said this was something to be emulated.

“All of us are trying to get the entire world to play on our playing field,” Robinson said. “And when you make those kinds of demands on people, most people are not willing to play on your field. So that effort to be in that person’s world, and to be present to that, seems to be something to long for.”

Crawford said that Hallie is never not in the present.

“She lives completely in the moment,” Crawford said. “And all that weight that’s on all of us to perform — and I mean like perform in life and have a good job and be successful and have people like us — all this weighs us down, and it is the root of all our problems and our woes. She’s free of that. She’s not carrying that. When she’s not happy, you know she’s not happy. But when she’s not happy, she’s not happy now.”

While reflecting on the scariest moments of Hallie’s cancer, Crawford said COVID closing everything down felt familiar.

“For my wife and I, it’s like, yeah, we know what this is like,” Crawford said. “We know this — the moment everything just completely changes, when what you planned, what you thought, what you expected would be there no longer is.”

In response to Crawford saying he sometimes becomes frustrated and scared about the pandemic, Robinson cited part of an Episcopalian prayer book that is meant for people who are sick.

“And if the answer to this prayer is that I have to lie here,” it reads, “let me lie here boldly.”

In regards to staying at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Robinson said there is a message for everyone in this prayer.

“There is a kernel of hope in there, in terms of the pandemic, that we could feel good about doing nothing because it’s what’s going to save countless lives out there,” Robinson said. “It’s not that we’re doing nothing, we’re doing nothing boldly to actually accomplish something.”

Crawford said his 9-year-old son has handled the changes due to COVID-19 well, but asked Robinson about how he counsels people to speak with their kids about this.

“In terms of faith, it’s a great time to remind ourselves and our kids that God never promises to take this difficulty away,” Robinson said. “God just promises to be with us in it and to never leave us. … It’s just enough. God being there doesn’t make it all alright, but it’s enough.”

In the wake of a pandemic, American political turmoil and disturbed international relations, people turned to Chautauqua Institution — amidst an organizational metamorphasis — for a sense of reprieve. The year was 1923.

“There was a frustration amongst Chautauquans with the world. They didn’t lose faith in God, but they did lose faith in the world. The war that was never supposed to happen did happen. The peace it was supposed to produce did not happen. Prohibition came; it did not end all the social ills it was supposed to. (Women’s) suffrage came; it did not fix the political situation the way it was supposed to,” said Jon Schmitz, Institution historian and archivist. “So, these schemes of hope for the future had been frustrated. As a result, people were looking for things like a place to spend a good time with their family.”

It was a safe place for women to go and do things without having to worry about their kids. But, dad wasn’t always there. He was back in the city, or whatever,” Schmitz said. “(The Institution) wanted to stress that this was a wonderful place for the modern businessman to relax and spend time with his family. There was something for dad to do: the men’s club, golf, fishing, etc.”

At the time people were itching for normalcy, Chautauqua Institution underwent a marketing shift to target every member of the family — not just the mothers and children. The Institution used film as one way to accomplish this. 

Schmitz will present a 1923 Institution marketing film at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday, July 17, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform as the third presentation in the Heritage Lecture Series. Schmitz will address the then-new demographic of the 1920s. 

“It was a safe place for women to go and do things without having to worry about their kids. But, dad wasn’t always there. He was back in the city, or whatever,” Schmitz said. “(The Institution) wanted to stress that this was a wonderful place for the modern businessman to relax and spend time with his family. There was something for dad to do: the men’s club, golf, fishing, etc.”

By attracting the breadwinning businessman, the Institution hoped to secure bonds and gifts to fund programming. At the time, the Institution was facing financial uncertainty. 

“The hope was that people would buy bonds, and then when they mature they would roll them over so as to go on financing the Institution. The gate was no longer able to pay for the programming and the grounds,” Schmitz said. “There had to be other sources of income so there needed to be gifts, but they also were relying on bonds. They needed that commitment from a family, to actually go and purchase the bonds.”

Schmitz said that from a historian’s standpoint, films are a unique way to observe the past. Film can fill in gaps where artifacts, still pictures, and written documents may lack. 

“Photographs and films add a great deal to the texts and artifacts, because it captures a moment where you can see the various aspects of this captured moment.” Schmitz said. “With a film, you get a temporal dimension which completes what the photograph is telling us. Film completes what the elements are, what the elements existing at a certain time were doing, and interacting with.”

This series is made possible with a gift from Jeff Lutz and Cathy Nowosielski.

Challenges. Problems. Crises. From Avivah Wittenberg-Cox’s viewing point, all represent opportunities.

She is the founder and CEO of 20-first, a rapidly growing U.K.-based, global consulting firm that focuses on “capturing the competitive advantage” — the business opportunities of “21st century forms of leadership, customer connections and talent management” –— by building gender-, nationality- and generationally-balanced businesses.

20-first has chosen doing good, having fun, sharing love, and staying foolish as its core values. Wittenberg-Cox espouses all four with keen perceptiveness, kind optimism and panache.   

At 3:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 14, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform, she will present a talk titled, “Four Phases of Women’s (and a Growing Number of Men’s) Career Cycles.” It is the second presentation in the 2020 Contemporary Issues Forum sponsored by the Chautauqua Women’s Club, and will be followed by a Q-and-A session.

“Part of the answer to adjusting to a changed world requires understanding where you are in your life and your career,” Wittenberg-Cox said. “People don’t often think of their careers or their lives in phases. … ‘What should I do next?’ dominates the discussion. ‘Where am I headed?’ is a rarer question. But it’s precisely when crisis hits that an opportunity opens to revisit the path as well as the program.”

A regular contributor to The New York Times and Forbes, her April 13, 2020, article, “What Do Countries With the Best Coronavirus Responses Have in Common? Women Leaders,” was a Forbes “Editors Pick” and has had over 8 million views. Wittenberg-Cox’s work has also been featured in Le Monde, FT, and Der Spiegel, as well as on BBC and TEDx, for which she has given several talks. 

A graduate of the University of Toronto, INSEAD (where she earned her MBA), and the Women’s Leadership Program at Harvard, she is Canadian, French and Swiss by nationality.

Wittenberg-Cox is also the Chautauquan who established the CWC’s Professional Women’s Network, having previously launched the European Professional Women’s Network. PWN Global recently honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Gender Balanced Leadership. ELLE Magazine has recognized her as one of the Top 40 Women Leading Change.

During Chautauqua Institution’s 2018 season, Wittenberg-Cox was an Amphitheater speaker during Week Six, the theme for which was “The Changing Nature of Work.” Summer after summer she has spoken or led networking sessions as part of the CWC’s annual program of lecture series. Always, she has shared new research and insights.

Scholarly research forms the basis for Wittenberg-Cox’s gender balance and bilingualism consulting and advocacy. Her 2009 book, Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of Our Next Economic Revolution, was awarded the MANPOWER Best Book of the Year Prize. Her sequel, How Women Mean Business, came out a year later. 

Clever graphics shape her short books, including Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business (2019), Three Ways of Engaging Men and Leaders in Gender Balance, and Four Phases of Women’s Careers: Becoming Gender Bilingual.  

“After more than a decade facilitating debates around gender issues with hundreds of leadership teams of large multinationals around the globe, I have not found men at all reticent about engaging with these issues, and their own accountability for it,” Wittenberg-Cox wrote in her 2018 guest column for The Chautauquan Daily.

“On the contrary, in the right context, with the right leadership, the words pour out,” she continued. “The most common feedback is gratitude, not grouchiness. The reality is that most executives have never had the time or the space to have a substantive dialogue with their peers about gender issues.” 

As she identifies and maps a career arc and planning horizon for women (as well as an increasing number of men), Wittenberg-Cox will also talk on Tuesday afternoon about how they can be more strategic and tactical in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s-plus, and  manage things more stably — even in a changed world.

Eleven years ago, Dennis Galucki was struck by the idea of a city where the aesthetic values of Chautauqua Institution existed not just nine weeks a year, but all 52. Galucki attached this idea to his Western New York hometown, which he felt uniquely embodied these values when he established the Institution’s annual Buffalo Day. But as years have passed, Galucki has come to believe that Buffalo Day shouldn’t stop at Buffalo.

“I hope others do explore that connection (of bringing Institution values elsewhere). Why not have an Atlanta Day at Chautauqua? In a digital age, why not think that way?” Galucki said. “It’s not about everybody from Atlanta or San Francisco going to Chautauqua that day — it’s about highlighting a connection (of values), and nurturing it back in your hometown.”

Galucki hopes to inspire Chautauquans to consider these ideas at 12:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 14, on the Virtual Porch in a Buffalo Day panel discussion titled “The Sacred Nature of Art & Democracy: Exploring Life’s Aesthetic Values – Beauty, Truth, Goodness, & Justice.” The panel will be moderated by Galucki and Emily Morris, Institution vice president of marketing and communications.

The panel will feature Stephanie Crockatt, executive director of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy; Joe Lin-Hill, deputy director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Michael G. Murphy, the president of Shea’s Performing Art Center; and Adam Zyglis, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist at The Buffalo News.

The week’s theme of “Art and Democracy” spoke to Galucki. He first started to recognize the similarities of Buffalo and Chautauqua through art and architecture in Buffalo. When looking at historical landmarks, Galucki found that they spoke of pillars and values that defined Buffalo at the time of their construction: art, architecture, history and nature. 

These four values reminded Galucki of the Institution’s four pillars: arts, education, religion, and recreation. Just like Chautauqua, he saw Buffalo’s potential to foster life-long learning, and this sparked what he called the Buffalo-Chautauqua idea. This idea is further exemplified with the Institution’s theme for Week Three. 

“I can connect Buffalo really legitimately with this theme: ‘Art and Democracy,’” Galucki said. “After 11 years it was, in my mind, the best theme that came along to go ahead and do this.”

Galucki believes that this discussion on “Art and Democracy” also comes at an interesting time in history, because current social justice movements have inspired powerful works of public art. 

“Perhaps the most significant art this year is the three words ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Galucki said. “I could argue that the painting of that (phrase) in front of municipal buildings, including the White House, may be the most profound work of art in a long time.”

Galucki said that the panel’s message of justice — along with truth, goodness and beauty — can be relatable across the country. He hopes that the audience can connect to this panel’s message and inspire similar work in their own regions.

“Hopefully people are entertained and find the experience worth wanting to know more about Chautauqua if they are first-timers, or reinforcing their support of Chautauqua if they are folks that have been around,” Galucki said. “That should be why anybody speaks. Yeah, educational, informative, fine. But I would argue that it better be entertaining.”

This program is made possible by the Buffalo-Chautauqua Idea and Connection: Galucki Family Endowment Fund.

Each summer, more than 10 million kids in America spend their days at camps or youth programs exploring outside, making friendship bracelets and tie dye T-shirts, playing games with friends or learning new skills and hobbies. 

Typically, days like this might end around a campfire roasting marshmallows, or in a log cabin packed full of friends. Chautauqua Institution, has, for years provided traditional and engaging summer camp and youth programs for children and teenagers on Chautauqua’s grounds. A variety of activities and classes have been available for children for decades through the Children’s School for ages 3 to 5, Group One for students entering first grade and the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, which has programs for grades two through 10.

This season at Chautauqua is full of interesting and educational programs for children of all ages, just like seasons of the past. The only difference? Each of the programs is now online. 

Instead of bug spray and baseball caps, Chautauqua’s youth need an internet connection, an open mind and a sense of creativity. 

Director of Youth and Family Programs Alyssa Porter was adamant that this year’s experience will not be the same — and that it is not meant to be. 

“It was important to me as we started this process that we didn’t try to replicate our youth activity experiences as online programs, because there is the magic of being a young person on Chautauqua’s grounds that you just aren’t going to get through a screen,” Porter said. “However, now family members, siblings and parents can participate in a new way, and that is something I’m excited about.”

The programs themselves will not, for the most part, be broadcast live, but there will be opportunities for live meetings and collaborations. Each different program is hosted on the CHQ Assembly Online Classroom and will allow participants to tune in to a video to learn about the day’s activities or receive prompts, which they will then complete on their own or with family members before returning for a re-cap of the day with their counselors. 

One key concern for Porter and her coworkers is the mental health of children and young adults through the progression of the pandemic. News reports have shown an increase in anxiety levels in children and Porter realized that making connections with friends was now especially difficult. 

“We want our kids to have a sense of normalcy at a time when the world is so chaotic,” Porter said. “I want to make sure that the mental health and well being of our young people was first and foremost in our goals, which is what we are trying to accomplish here.”

In order to help facilitate the transition to online activities while retaining a sense of community, the youth and family programs have stretched into the world of social media, sometimes reposting content from the virtual classroom, and sometimes sharing something completely original via the video app TikTok or the social media site Instagram, both with the handle @chq_clubhouse. 

“This is an important element for me because the Online Classroom is so new for our families that I wanted to make sure that we were in a space that was familiar to young people as well,” Porter said. “We are using it as an additional tool to really connect and bring people together.”

Chautauqua offers an array of unique programming, from nature and art programs to literary classes and STEM camps, each led by counselors who have helped to design the programs. The counselors were given full creative freedom to construct the programs, something that Porter thinks has helped to keep the excitement alive. 

The new classes and programs will appear hand-in-hand with many Chautauqua traditions, such as making friendship bracelets or lanyards; The Boys’ and Girls’ Club tradition of tie-dye events has migrated onto social media, where there is a weekly “Tie-Dye Tuesday” livestream. 

“Beyond the traditions, it was really up to my counselors to decide what they were passionate about and what they thought would work well within this format,” Porter said. “None of us have the roadmap for how this works, so we can’t be afraid to make mistakes or share ideas because that is what helps keep this exciting and interesting.”

Porter hopes the experiences that children have in the youth programs will be ones that they carry with them throughout life, especially in uncertain times.

“Some of what we forget as adults is that those activities and arts and crafts that we learn as kids in youth programs can become great self-care tools and coping skills,” Porter said. “It’s especially important now to take care of yourself.”

Welcome to Week Three of CHQ Assembly. Our first two weeks have certainly been an adventure for us all, and we’re deeply grateful that you’ve decided to be a part of our “beta test” this summer. Last week we looked at “Forces Unseen,” and we move from there to a topic that’s very visible, and very much in sync with our multidisciplinary approach at Chautauqua: “Art and Democracy.” 

Artist, advocate, activist, citizen. What is the role of art — and the artist — in an active democracy? This week, we will hear from artists raising the social consciousness, challenging the status quo and engaging communities large and small toward meaningful action. We consider how art and artmaking serve as catalysts for dissent and change and have the unique ability to bring community together to heal following trauma. And we ask: How are the arts uniquely positioned to move the conversation forward, when other attempts at dialogue fail? 

In many ways, this is a specialty for Chautauqua. We have been graced by our own professional artistic companies and ensembles for most of our history. Whether that be the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Theater Company, Chautauqua Opera Company, Chautauqua Visual Arts, or any of the countless numbers of artistic luminaries who have studied in our Schools of Performing and Visual Arts, we have long been an organization and community in which the arts flourish. This year, however, through the medium of CHQ Assembly, we take what we have known from our own artists and those from across the globe to probe further what the arts can teach us during times when we may not be able to grasp or hear important messages without them. 

Throughout our experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, artists have been giving voice to our frustrations and our hopes, and I know this week will do the same. I’m so excited to welcome Anna Deavere Smith, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker and my dear friend Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, among many others, to help us unpack this week. 

In our companion Interfaith Lecture Series, we look at the ways that art might provide a “Glimpse into the Divine.” Art inspires, art teaches, art speaks, art energizes, art soothes, art heals, art empowers. Art underlies and underlines the commonalities of human existence. In this week we look into the spiritual power of art to glimpse the divine, in all its forms, and change the world. In addition to an amazing lineup of interfaith speakers, we’re so excited to have Fr. Greg Boyle back with us as our chaplain of the week. 

I want to close this column by thanking all of you who are participating in this summer of beta testing for our new suite of CHQ Assembly online platforms. Most days it’s been a splendid adventure, but I know that there have also been days when our Week Two theme of “Forces Unseen” seemed to be taking over, as technology and other issues prevented us from staging certain programs as scheduled. I thought it might be useful to share some behind-the-scenes “numbers” with you as a sign of our gratitude for sticking with us when those moments occur. 

We launched the 2020 Summer Assembly Season just 11 days ago (at this writing), with five entirely new digital platforms, three new on-grounds television studios with multiple camera systems, and an entirely new crew that has never worked together or on a project of this particular nature, while also coordinating with more than a dozen remote studios and videographers around the country. We’ve learned a lot about how to tackle issues with our own equipment and processes, and we’ve also encountered some problems that are simply outside our control, like when the Google Cloud hosting platform experienced an East Coast crash, or when our video streaming platform has nationwide technical issues, or when our ISP has a massive service interruption. These “forces unseen” truly have made for an interesting summer so far! But because you’ve stuck with us, we also have some incredibly hopeful numbers to share. 

In just our first two weeks, we have produced: 

•   33 lecture, worship, and performing arts programs that aired and are available on-demand at assembly.chq.org; 
•   51 programs on the Virtual Porch, at porch.chq.org;
•   three 3D virtual gallery tours on the Chautauqua Visual Arts platform, at art.chq.org; and  
•   multiple master and enrichment classes on the Online Classroom platform, at learn.chq.org. 

And to characterize the audience for our offerings so far: 

•   nearly 6,000 people have subscribed to our Video Platform, assembly.chq.org; 
•   CHQ Assembly programs have been accessed 73,000 times, with some 40,000 of those viewing programs through to completion; and 
•   participants in the CHQ Assembly represent 50 countries(!) in addition to the U.S. 

Comparatively, some of our larger festival partners who have four to five times the size of our budgets have shrunk weeks of programming into five hours of offerings. I mean that not as a dig on anyone else, but rather as an acknowledgment of and testimony to the resiliency of the Chautauqua spirit. Each day we learn more, and we continue to learn from you. Thank you for accepting our offer to beta test this season. It will make CHQ Assembly a powerhouse of convening for years to come.

To Jon Schmitz, historian and archivist for Chautauqua Institution, a tradition cannot be spontaneous, it cannot be mandated, and it cannot be declared on a whim. 

“I don’t feel comfortable with the term ‘new traditions.’ I think that is trying to assume legitimacy that (a practice) hasn’t earned yet,” Schmitz said. “The key (to a tradition) is to be accepted by those practicing (it) as what should be done.”

Schmitz will further explore what constitutes a tradition at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday, July 10, on CHQ Assembly in a lecture titled “Traditions of Chautauqua.” As part of the Heritage Lecture Series, Schmitz’s presentation will explore the archive’s most-inquired-about Institution traditions.

Notable traditions include Chautauqua Salutes, Recognition Day, and the Opening Three Taps of the Gavel. Schmitz said that this lecture topic was chosen to, in some way, continue acknowledging these traditions despite remote programming preventing them from being practiced in person. 

“I thought it would be a good idea to review some of the traditions to see what they are, how they came about, when did they start, (and) was there a reason for them,” Schmitz said.

Although the community cannot physically participate in some of these traditions, the Institution is working to keep them intact. Schmitz said he is aware of efforts to organize a virtual Recognition Day, an all-day annual celebration of Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle graduates. The Institution has worked to virtually maintain traditions by ushering in the 2020 season by premiering Three Taps on CHQ Assembly. 

(Our traditions) accumulate meaning over time for Chautauqua, and also for individual Chautauquans,” Schmitz said. “It’s a way of remembering the past. It’s also the way of bringing the past into the present, so that we can put things into the perspective of past, present, and future.”

In his opening Three Taps of the Gavel, Institution President Michael E. Hill formally launched the virtual season from the Amphitheater, where a traditional, in-person season would begin. In his Three Taps, Hill spoke about Chautauquan traditions as reflections of programming, values, and the Institution’s place in the world. 

“Tradition is important at Chautauqua. It’s the reason we’re here on this stage today. The same space which almost every assembly has been ushered in, and where we hold our principle worship service,” Hill said. “Our traditions are replete with important symbols that tell stories about our history and our present role in the world.”

For the Institution, Schmitz said that traditions allow the history to be passed down and kept alive through the years. Even as the Institution and its audience evolves, the history is still kept alive. 

“(Our traditions) accumulate meaning over time for Chautauqua, and also for individual Chautauquans,” Schmitz said. “It’s a way of remembering the past. It’s also the way of bringing the past into the present, so that we can put things into the perspective of past, present, and future.”

The Oliver Archives Heritage Lecture Series is made possible with a gift from Jeff Lutz and Cathy Nowosielski.

Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill and Board of Trustees Chair Candy Maxwell will host a discussion regarding updates to the strategic plan, 150 Forward, during the season’s second Weekly Conversation. 

This conversation will begin at 1 p.m. EDT, Thursday, July 9, on the Virtual Porch. Audience members can join in the conversation live by submitting their questions for Hill and Maxwell. The presentation will be made available on demand the same day. 

During Week One’s conversation, which provided general updates on the summer and CHQ Assembly, Hill and Maxwell said the weekly conversations were designed as a way for the audience to join into Institution conversations, despite geographic separation. Maxwell noted that this virtual conversation may be more efficient than traditional, in-person conversations. 

In the past, weekly conversations tended to cover similar subjects because the audience would vary from week-to-week, so Institution administration could not continue the thread from preceding topics. Maxwell said that now, since people across the country can tune in and watch conversations even after they are live-streamed, they can build upon topics previously covered. 

“Because we are able to conduct these sessions virtually this year, I think we have a unique opportunity to cover a lot of different topics,” Maxwell said. “You have access to this webinar at any point during the season. Whether or not you are physically on the grounds, you are participating via an online experience.”

Hill later said that not only will the overall CHQ Assembly platform allow more complex conversation, it will facilitate more diverse perspectives. The Institution can now draw in people who would normally be limited by finances, interest, and location. 

In an effort to attract this new audience, the Institution partnered with Mather, a not-for-profit organization that provides senior living residence and community-based programming for adults 55 and up. Mather provides CHQ Assembly access to its communities so that they can learn and engage with the Institution. 

“There’s some fairly significant racial diversity in some of the communities that Mather supports that allows us to hopefully expand the representation of folks participating from a different racial background than has (traditionally) been a homogenous Chautauqua audience,” Hill said. “We’re also hoping that because price is not a barrier that we break through some socioeconomic diversity issues.”

Hill said he hopes that by reaching these new audiences, new perspectives will help shape conversations at Chautauqua.

During the conversation, Hill and Maxwell also explained the technical aspects of transitioning the Institution online. When the Board of Trustees unanimously voted to suspend in-person programming this season in May, Institution leaders quickly worked to move nine weeks of programming online — an amount of planning that is typically done over the course of several months to a year. 

Financing this new endeavor was one of many obstacles they had to quickly maneuver through. Hill said that the Institution had about $10 million in cash reserves at the start of the pandemic, and spent about $7.5 million to shore up the Institution’s annual budget and make a virtual season possible. Community donations and Paycheck Protection Program funds have softened the blow. 

A 2019 donation from Ted and Betsy Merchant to equip the grounds with technology had already spurred major infrastructure, equipment and software improvements that continued through the CHQ Assembly planning. The investments made it possible for popular event spaces to be redeployed as studios, in some cases providing familiar backgrounds.

“That gift has paid off in spades. What you can’t see on CHQ Assembly is that Lenna Hall, the Hall of Christ, the Amphitheater, the Becker Room, sometimes the Amphitheater stage, and other areas have been linked together like television studios. That gift has allowed us to talk between those buildings,” Hill said. “And we have also hardwired in camera devices in places like the Hall of Philosophy, which was our intent to use this summer for better livestreaming.” Those Hall of Philosophy cameras are temporarily being used in the Hall of Christ studio space.

In upcoming years, Hill said, the Institution plans to utilize CHQ Assembly and other online platforms as an amplifier for its content, even as programming reverts back to its traditional, in-person format. 

Chautauquans can join the Weekly Conversation at 1 p.m. EDT every Thursday this season on the Virtual Porch. Upcoming topics will include diversifying revenue, Chautauqua Lake and more. 

Chautauqua Institution historian and archivist Jon Schmitz will commence the 2020 Heritage Lecture Series at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday, July 3, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform with a presentation on the history of the Chautauqua movement.

In ChautauqWhat?: A historical overview of Chautauqua, Schmitz will share the 150-year history of the Chautauqua Movement and what makes the Institution unique. 

The movement began in 1874 with the establishment of the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly as an experiment in “vacation” learning that took place outside of school. It grew to the Chautauqua Institution that currently exists, fostering life-long learning, religion, art, and music. 

As the Institution grew, “Daughter Chautauquas” emerged across the country to replicate the western New York organization. At the peak of its popularity in 1915, an estimated 12,000 communities had hosted a Chautauqua. This practice died down in the following decades, but the Institution remained. 

Just as the Daughter Chautauquas brought programming into people’s communities across the country, the Institution is doing the same through its virtual 2020 season — a season that Schmitz called unprecedented.  

“(The pandemic) makes this the most exceptional season without question. There has never been a year before when the program was canceled,” Schmitz said. “It’s never been radically affected by wars, or pandemics or economic problems.”

When world events have interfered with programming in the past, it was small compared to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the 2020 season. For example, Schmitz said in years past the opera schedule may have been abbreviated, or the season cut short by a week. But, in-person programming has never been outright canceled.

Schmitz said he hopes that this historic year will allow the audience and community to reflect on what the Institution is and stands for. 

“The significance of it is that it will cause people to think more seriously about what Chautauqua is, what it is to them, what they want from it, and what they expect to have from it,” Schmitz said. “At what point is Chautauqua no longer Chautauqua?”

The season will see further programming from the Oliver Archives Center about Chautauqua’s traditions and history, with two films from 1923. Schmitz is welcoming three guests to the platform for lectures this season: author and public speaker Rick Swegan, Chautauqua Institution Archives Assistant Emálee Krulish, and North Carolina State University Professor Emeritus Gary Moore. 

Schmitz prides himself on the work of the Heritage Lecture Series, welcoming speakers who are truly passionate about speaking at the Institution. The speakers are not offered stipends, so there is no incentive other than a desire to speak at the Institution. 

“That tends to bring very good speakers. Speakers in the Heritage Lecture Series really make an effort to work up their presentations. They take it very seriously that they’re speaking,” Schmitz said.

One main draw for speakers is the audience they will be speaking to. Schmitz said that the Institution hosts “one of the best audiences in the world.” 

“Chautauqua audiences are attentive. They are patient. They are really very sophisticated,” Schmitz said. “It’s so strange to talk when you’re speaking to a Chautauquan audience. You’re speaking to people who are professors from well-established universities to people who are entirely new to the subject.”

The Heritage Lecture Series will premiere a new presentation at 3:30 p.m. EDT every Friday this season on CHQ Assembly.

Editor’s note: These are the prepared remarks for Chautauqua Institution President
Michael E. Hill’s annual Three Taps of the Gavel address, delivered Sunday, June 28, 2020 in an empty Amphitheater as part of CHQ Assembly, prior to the beginning of the Service of Worship and Sermon.

“Good morning, and welcome home to Chautauqua.”

These are the words I have ordinarily used to open our assembly in the first four years I have been fortunate enough to serve as Chautauqua’s president. But this year is anything but ordinary. What you can’t see beyond me is an empty Amphitheater, which can seat up to 4,500 people. Our grounds in Western New York are traditionally populated with between 7,500 to 10,000 people on a day like this. My best estimates are that we have approximately 1,000 people on the grounds for the start of this season. From coast to coast, we are joined by people who are or have been locked in their homes or quarantining in far-off places due to COVID-19. And our nation is in week four of coast-to-coast protests for racial equality, and is facing anew questions about unhealed wounds that date back to our founding.

And yet, today, my “ordinary” greeting of “welcome home to Chautauqua” is still the right one, as we are welcoming you home to what our co-founder Bishop John Heyl Vincent called “the Chautauqua of ideas and inspirations, (which) is not dependent upon the literal and local Chautauqua.”

Tradition is important at Chautauqua. It’s the reason we’re here on this stage today, the same space from which almost every Assembly has been ushered in, and where we hold our principal worship services. Our traditions are replete with important symbols that tell stories about our history and our present role in the world and the yet untapped promise of our future. And symbols have been very much on my mind during this pandemic.

Today, from the opening three taps of a historic gavel, we usher in Chautauqua’s 147th Assembly. So much has happened in our world since the last time this gavel met the aged wood of this lectern, creating that haunting echo that portends the playing of the Largo on the great Massey Organ. This ritual of signifying the passage of time, the mourning of what must come to an end and the promise of something new emerging is a powerful metaphor for today.

And it is this “something new emerging” that makes me tremendously excited to gavel in this Assembly, perhaps one of the most important gatherings we have ever convened.

Tradition is important at Chautauqua. It’s the reason we’re here on this stage today, the same space from which almost every Assembly has been ushered in, and where we hold our principal worship services. Our traditions are replete with important symbols that tell stories about our history and our present role in the world and the yet untapped promise of our future. And symbols have been very much on my mind during this pandemic.

I have three items on top of my desk in the President’s Office at the Colonnade. One is a replica of a sign that sat atop the Resolute Desk in President John F. Kennedy’s White House. It reads “O, God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” The second is a stone square that former Chautauqua Vice President Marty Merkley gave me shortly after I began my tenure as the Institution’s 18th President. Inscribed in the rock is a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gave his famed “I Hate War” speech in this space. And the third is a 125-year-old rivet salvaged from a steel truss of the old Amphitheater, which was given to me when we opened up this revitalized Amphitheater at the start of my presidency in 2017. Each of these objects hold cues to the work that begins today and provides for us critical questions:

• What kind of vessel can Chautauqua be in these times of raging waters?
• Who are today’s prophetic voices that, like Roosevelt, serve as lanterns that light the way to the future we must create?
• And what is going to hold us together during this time and beyond if we are not only going to come out the other side of this crazy moment in history but come out a society that is better because we weathered the storm and learned from it?

These are the central questions of our 147th Assembly, and this is the journey we begin today.

What kind of vessel can Chautauqua be?

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in Between the World and Me, “My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers — even the answers they themselves believed. I don’t know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being ‘politically conscious’ — as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.”

Chautauqua is asking itself an important question: How do we best serve a nation hungry for meaning and answers to complex questions at a time that feels so chaotic? As now-emeritus Kent State University President Beverly Warren asked us at Chautauqua in 2018, how do we “use the wound” to do something that will make our tomorrow a better one?

Today, we officially launch CHQ Assembly, a multi-platform online digital collective that will allow us to share all nine theme weeks of this summer assembly season, our featured lecture speakers, our chaplains of the week, our interfaith speakers, performing arts events, an impressive set of online master and enrichment classes, and a space for Chautauqua Visual Arts that allows people to view exhibitions, explore artwork, and shop in our Gallery Store. And all of that is only hinting at the hundreds of young performing and visual artists who will be studying with us online.

But CHQ Assembly is not a response to COVID-19, and it’s not a one-time initiative meant to bridge us to the other side of this pandemic. While it is certainly helping us to convene this summer, its inspiration comes from our strategic plan, 150 Forward, which asks us to consider how Chautauqua might have an impact beyond our traditional grounds in Western New York and beyond the traditional calendar of our summer assembly season. That plan also asks us to consider how we might harness the power of our platform to do even greater good in the world.

With this launch, we intend to be a part of a year-round dialogue and to use the power of CHQ Assembly, in partnership with others, to amplify voices in a needed national dialogue. We also hope that it allows us, perhaps for the first time in a significant way, to expand the reach of Chautauqua’s programming to audiences that have been for far too long missing from the Chautauqua mix. We seek to realize greater socioeconomic reach, to increase racial diversity and to remove financial and geographic boundaries that have kept our audiences too homogenous for too long.

As a respondent said in one of our community surveys last year, “What stands out for me is a promise that is not yet realized, which is inclusivity and becoming a place that demonstrates the values it espouses.” Those values:

• Passion for multigenerational and multidisciplinary engagement through the arts, education, recreation, and religion;
• Belief in the dignity and contributions of all people;
• Commitment to dialogue to achieve enhanced understanding that leads to positive action;
• Respect for the serenity, tradition, safety, and ecology of Chautauqua’s historic Grounds and surroundings; and
• Balance between Chautauqua’s heritage and the need to innovate.

… all come to rest in our new CHQ Assembly. We pledge today to provide a vessel for a more inclusive society to share what’s on its mind, to connect with one another and to remove the barriers that determine who gets to lead, or even be a part of, the conversation. It’s the opportunity to not only expand our programming reach, but more importantly to build a larger, more diverse community of fellow learners. When the community expands, the conversation changes, and the opportunity to learn grows. Chautauqua is the practice of humanity through forum, reflection and art, leading to thoughtful action, and this Assembly is inviting all — not some, but all — of the richness of humanity to play a part.

Who are today’s lanterns, lighting the way toward the future?

The murder of George Floyd on May 29 ignited worldwide protests against a racist and unjust system. Coming amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic, the world — and our country especially — has been flooded with renewed questions and calls for reform, for justice, for an end to some lives mattering while others seemingly do not. We enter this summer assembly, as Coates beckons us, needing “a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.”

We need to explore:

• Our global and local response to climate change;
• Those unseen forces that are influencing the weaving and tearing of the fabric of our nation;
• The way in which art informs and has the potential to save our democracy;
• The ethical boundaries of our increasingly valuable and increasingly invasive technology;
• What we still have to learn from the suffrage movement in our ongoing fights for equality as we mark the 100th anniversary of women being granted the right to vote in this nation;
• How we rebuild our public education system and whether it can, as Horace Mann once noted, be “the great equalizer;”
• How notions of “us” and “we” can break through tribalism and isolation to help us bridge our differences;
• Whether the U.S. Constitution provides a pathway toward securing the “blessings of liberty” for us all and what may need to change to make that so; and
• What will the world look like over the coming decades, and how we can work together to better prepare for the future.

If Roosevelt used Chautauqua’s platform to remind the nation that we should hate war, we have an obligation to use this platform to give voice to those of this time that can show us a way forward, and I’m grateful to Christiana Figueres, Rabbi David Wolpe, Anna Deavere Smith, Darren Walker, Valarie Kaur, Sir Ken Robinson, Martha Jones, Jon Meacham, Angélique Kidjo, and Rhiannon Giddens, among many others, for being today’s lanterns.

What’s going to hold us together?

Many have questioned how we hold society together when we can’t even be within six feet of one another. Certainly, as an organization, as we shifted toward using CHQ Assembly as our main form of convening this summer, we asked ourselves questions about how to engage authentically when we have historically used the in-person gathering as one of our main ingredients — some might even say it’s the secret sauce of Chautauqua.

So what does it mean that for many Chautauquans this summer they will engage without leaving their homes or home communities? What does it look like to explore these important questions from the confines of our living rooms or on a remote device far from this Amphitheater or any of the other dozens of public gathering spaces on these grounds in Western New York?

We often say when you come to Chautauqua that its power is not in the convening here, but in what you choose to do when you return home. Do you take all you’ve learned here and make a conscious choice to make your own corner of the planet a better place?

Coretta Scott King reminds us that “the greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”

Given all that’s happening in the world, given the need for questions that demand exploration, not for certainty’s sake, but because we can and must come together, as we begin this new season, how can we take all we’re about to learn and devote our energies to do the work when our communities need it, need us, most?

This isn’t a “lost” summer, but a summer when we’re called to do more. The way we embrace fellow Chautauquans on the Plaza is how we should embrace those wherever we find ourselves this summer. This summer we don’t come to Chautauqua, but carry the spirit of Chautauqua throughout a world that needs it. And that spirit means opening ourselves up to learning, to declaring that “I have more work to do.” This summer must unite the name Chautauqua with the synonym of “active citizenry.” Because, when the world needs it most, we’re reminded that Chautauqua can, and must always be, far more than a place.

As I stare out into the Amphitheater today, there’s something powerful about knowing that while the benches may be empty, I look out into an amplified community, the heart of Chautauqua that gathers today to learn together, to worship together, and that makes a commitment to make the world a better place because of it.

That’s what those objects on my desk remind me of as we begin this assembly.

Yes, the sea is so great right now. But our charge is not to despair, but to be a vessel of hope.

Yes, the world sometimes feels as if it is at war. But we have modern-day prophets to serve as lanterns, showing us a way to a better tomorrow.

Yes, this tumultuous time has many feeling disjointed and insecure. But like that rivet that held our Amphitheater together, this Chautauqua ideal that was birthed almost 150 years ago was forged in harsh conditions. It has survived financial crises, societal upheaval, natural disasters and acts of terrorism. It can sustain the winds of a pandemic. We are anchored securely in our convictions to deploy the best in human values into the world.

When the rain has subsided, when the clouds roll away and reveal the sunrise of a new day, the daylight will show that Chautauquans never retreated, that Chautauqua never went away, not for even a minute. We found new ways when we were told the old ones were off-limits. We asked unrelenting questions, not always to reach answers, but to get closer to them. And we did that from all over the world, bringing the questions and a call to action to wherever we call home.

It is that exploration of humanity — with all its accomplishments and all its wounds – that commences at Chautauqua in this 147th Assembly. A pandemic could not keep us from that. Weeks of protests against injustice remind us we have too much important work left to do. So let’s get to it.

I tap the gavel three times …

Chautauqua 2020 has begun.