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Freedom Forum Group’s Benjamin Marcus lays out need for religious literacy education in American landscape

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Marcus

With an Italian Roman Catholic mother and a humanist Jewish father, the sometimes-heated religious conversations Benjamin Marcus witnessed between his parents provided “productive tension” that helped him to form his own understanding of his religious identity.

His high school education on religion? Not so much.

“My high school did not prepare me to understand the complexity of religion in American public life, much less the complexity of religion that I was experiencing at home,” Marcus said.

Marcus, a former Presidential Scholar at the Harvard Divinity School and a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Brown University, is a specialist at the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom Forum Group. He presented his lecture “Religious Literacy in Public Schools: Embracing Complexity and Tension” at 2 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Aug. 4, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform.

The lecture aligned with the Week Six theme “Lessons in the School House” for the Interfaith Lecture Series. Maureen Rovegno, Chautauqua Institution’s director of religion, led the subsequent Q-and-A with audience questions submitted through the www.questions.chq.org portal and on Twitter with #CHQ2020.

In his role at the Religious Freedom Center, Marcus has helped to develop religious literacy programs for public schools and universities, as well as institutions including businesses, U.S. government organizations and private foundations.

Marcus said a factor that illustrates the need for religious literacy is the gradual change in the composition of religious people and in what it means to be religious. Following a trend that Chautauquans have discussed for years, a Public Religion Research Institute study reported a growing number of people who don’t identify with a religion.

“Young Americans are living in the most diverse generation in American history,” Marcus said.

Religious beliefs also change over time in social and political values with productive tension. Between 2013 and 2019, both white Evangelicals and Black Protestants experienced a historic dip in opposition to same-sex marriage.

Marcus has seen religious shifts in public opinion affect his own life. Pope Francis’ words, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” convinced Marcus’ Roman Catholic grandfather that he could accept Marcus and his brother as respectively queer and gay without conflict with his beliefs.

But Marcus said that destructive tension has also defined this moment of religious complexity. Hate crime data from organizations including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Southern Poverty Law Center have reported a rise in hate crimes against Jewish and Muslim people since 2013.

The American Academy of Religion hypothesizes that religious illiteracy is what fuels prejudice resulting in violence, and that teaching about religion can help students understand values in civic life and reduce this threat.

Evidence is found in a study by scholars Emile Lester and Patrick Roberts, who surveyed Modesto, California, students in the only district in the nation at the time that offered a religious studies course. They found that while students did not become more or less religious as a result of the course, they did recognize more the rights of others — including those they disagreed with.

Marcus said that there is also a disconnect in Americans’ understanding of what is legally allowed to be taught in schools. The U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote in a majority decision that while state-sponsored devotional Bible reading and prayer recitation is not constitutional, the First Amendment supports a secular study about religion in schools for its literary and historical significance.

“It might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization,” Clark wrote.

Marcus said that Harvard’s Religious Literacy Project, which Judy Beals gave a lecture on a day prior, is an example of an institution working toward expanding a model of teaching that encourages critical thinking through a religious lens. Not only does the model present to students that religions are not only internally diverse and are embedded in culture, but also change over time.

“It’s a comment on how those interpretations or expressions in those traditions are changing over time,” Marcus said.

For example, in the first half of the 19th century, white Christians in the United States were relatively divided about whether the institution of slavery fit into the morality of Christian teachings. They were similarly divided about segregation in the 1960s and now, they have split opinions on mass incarceration.

And the experience of religion does not exist separately from a person’s experience of the world. Marcus defined religious complexity in a model “3B” framework with Diane Moore, who founded Harvard’s Literacy Project. The framework connects how religious and secular beliefs, behavior according to those beliefs and belonging to a religion and other identities connects to the rest of a person’s experience in the world. 

Marcus said sociological research findings commonly report that people are more likely to come across people who are different from them at work or while shopping than at their house of worship. He said the conclusions echo a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. in a 1960 NBC interview.

“I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America,” King said.

The framework doesn’t just identify identity differences, but also maps out how each aspect informs the others in a person’s understanding of their religion. Growing up partially Roman Catholic, Marcus has observed priests commonly tell people looking to ground themselves in the Church to participate in church life through communion and confession. While Catholics center their religion through belonging to a community, Zen Buddhists seek understanding of life truths through seated meditation.

On the other hand, Marcus said that while a culture with customs of bowing to elders informs a person’s relationship to others and with God, external identities outside religion can mold it as well. According to the Rev. James Cone, the greatest source of Black theology is the Black experience, which he said was a life of humiliation and suffering defined by white supremacy.

“In a world awash with religious influence,” Marcus said, religious literacy curriculum done right also provides critical metacognitive thinking skills in reflecting on a student’s own religious identity and place in public life.

But public schools are not yet teaching religious literacy at this desired level. In a Pew Research Center study, Americans on average answered 16 out of 32 factual questions about religions correctly. In comparison, atheists, agnostics, Jewish people and Mormons answered about 20 questions correctly on average.

While basic knowledge of religion is not the only indication of religious education quality, “it is one data point that shows that education about religion falls short in this country,” Marcus said.

Americans also misunderstand what is allowed to be taught in schools. Another Pew study found that while 89% of Americans know that prayer cannot occur in schools, only 36% know that schools are permitted to offer a comparative religion course and 23% know that students can read from the Bible as literature in class.

Teachers also are not widely trained to teach religion in academic and constitutional ways. According to a PDK International Poll, Marcus said a majority of teachers and parents want schools to offer courses on religion and the Bible as literature should be offered as an elective.

“There is no meaningful ideological or political gap in support for such courses,” Marcus said.

However, Marcus did note that Bible-as-literature courses do privilege a set of Judeo-Christian texts that exclude other religions, atheists and agnostics.

Last year, Marcus organized a National Religions Center summit on religious literacy. From the summit’s discussions — between teachers, administrators, district and state coordinators, scholars, professional development providers, religious community members and textbook publishers — a white paper summarized eight action items. It called to expand and strengthen teacher education, while also creating and implementing an outreach strategy to increase the number of educators, institutions and community members who support the study of religion.

“Ultimately, religious literacy education will not thrive unless teachers feel trained and equipped on religion academically and constitutionally,” Marcus said.

Students can also organize and train teachers. Six Maryland students formed SikhKid2Kid, an organization that provides professional development training for teachers on Sikhism. Teachers receive a certificate from their district after going through the program.

But Marcus said religious literacy needs to be embedded at all levels, in public schools, universities and communities, for the sake of understanding one another.

“We have the power to decide whether the complexity of the American religious landscape will be productive and mediated by a loving commitment to one another — as it was for my family — or destructive.”

Opera Behind the Scenes: Technical Direction to dive into the company’s many moving parts

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Chautauqua Opera carpenters work on a piece of scenery for the company’s 2019 production of ¡Figaro! (90210). PHOTO COURTESY OF CHAUTAUQUA OPERA.

John “JP” Woodey knows that when Chautauquans watch a Chautauqua Opera Company performance, they aren’t usually thinking about what’s happening behind the scenes. That’s how he knows he’s done a good job.

“The way I look at it, if they’re noticing what the technicians are doing during the actual performance, then there’s something that’s not quite right,” said Woodey, Chautauqua Opera’s technical director. “During the show, patrons should be enjoying the show.”

Woodey has been working with Chautauqua Opera for more than 10 years, the last three of them as technical director. This week he will join General and Artistic Director Steven Osgood for Chautauqua Opera’s Behind-the-Scenes Series: Technical Direction. The event will air at noon EDT Thursday, Aug. 6, on the CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch.

Woodey started at Chautauqua Opera in 2007 as an assistant lighting designer; four years later he returned and has been with the company ever since. He was part of the team that helped design the preparatory lighting plot for the Amphitheater when it was renovated in 2016.

As the technical director, Woodey is in charge of executing the director and designers’ visions for scenery, lighting, sound, props and more.

“I’m responsible for anything that an artist has to touch, deal with, walk on or be around onstage and backstage,” he said. “I’m in charge of the execution of what goes on that stage in a non-director, non-aesthetic-deciding (capacity).”

Each year he is responsible for looking at the upcoming season and creating a plan that will balance the company’s time and financial constraints with its artistic vision.

“We have a finite amount of money and we have a finite amount of time, (but) we want to have the best quality (production) as well,” Woodey said. “The old phrase is, ‘Pick two.’ So, the challenge I have is trying to figure out how it’s going to work as a whole and not shortchange one area or another.”

He and his crew typically arrive at the Institution in early June, or “Week Minus Three” as he calls it, to start building scenery.

“We hit the ground running,” Woodey said, “because three, four, five weeks later, we have to have the sets practically done.”

While Norton Hall can be a challenge to build for, due to the theater’s small size, performances in the Amp are another beast altogether.

For last year’s performance of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, Woodey and his crew built an extensive set that could be loaded into a truck, driven to the Amp and assembled in an hour or less.

“What the patrons in the house see are, of course, the performers on stage using those set pieces,” he said. “What (they) don’t see is the choreography of the stagehands putting all this stuff together.”

Due to the limited availability of the space, tech rehearsals in the Amp typically start at 9 p.m., and sometimes run into the next morning.

“We’ve had occasions where, as were leaving, the Amp sweepers were coming in to (open) the building,” Woodey said. “The building never goes dark.”

While he isn’t expecting a standing ovation for his work, Woodey hopes Chautauquans will leave the Behind-the-Scenes Series with a better understanding of the many moving parts that go into putting on a production at Chautauqua Opera.

“I just want to make the audience aware that what they see onstage is not the only thing out there,” he said. “Take a look at the program — see who all’s been working hard and putting all this together.”

Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, discusses how he took actions to transform the public education system in Florida, what school systems and educators need to focus on today and how the pandemic has impacted the education sector

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While visiting 250 schools during his 1998 gubernatorial campaign, Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, watched a student practicing for the HSCT test, a test that students needed to pass to graduate high school. Bush said the student could not answer the question, “If a baseball game starts at 3 p.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m., how long was the game?”

“Having all of these kinds of personal stories as a candidate really supercharged me as governor to make sure that I did everything I could to change the system so that (students), particularly the lower-performing kids, would have a fighting chance,” Bush said. “I think (education) is the great equalizer. Quality education will allow for many different possibilities for a young person as they start their life. The opposite is true if they don’t have the quality education.”

As well as being the governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, Bush was a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and is founder, president and chairman of the board of directors of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. At 10:45 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform, Bush joined in conversation with Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill on “Fostering Bold and Transformational Education Reform.” Bush discussed the actions he took to transform the public education system in Florida, what school systems and educators need to focus on today and how the pandemic has impacted the education sector. 

Hill asked Bush to outline the education overhaul he conducted as governor of Florida, and why he did it.

Bush said when he took office, Florida ranked last in the country in high school graduation rates. 

When he was running for office, one of his plans involved more accountability in education, such as if a school was rated an “F,” with the highest rank being “A,” two times in four years, then every child had the option of attending a private school or a better-performing public school. Bush said that plan also held back students at the end of third grade if they were functionally illiterate. 

“If you’re telling people you have these high expectations for every kid, then you have to (have) the resources to be able to back it up,” Bush said. “A lot of times, people advocate reforms that don’t have the resources to actually make the reforms work.”

Bush said reading coaches were hired at every school and teachers were better trained to teach reading. He said Florida went from the bottom of the 50 states, to sixth, in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math levels. 

“The kids that led the way were low-income kids, Hispanic kids, African-American kids, kids with learning disabilities, because we measured and we had accountability around them and the system,” Bush said. “The entire system was really organized to make sure that they rose up.” 

Hill asked Bush about over-testing students, and how to measure their skills while not simply teaching them how to get high scores on tests. 

“Great teachers don’t teach to the test; they teach to the expectations that are set by educators,” Bush said. 

Bush believes that testing as a measurement is important, and also that there is too much testing. He believes that testing should be done at the end of the semester, instead of during the middle, as in some schools. These tests should diagnose exactly where the student stands, and Bush said this information should be given to their parents, their teacher, as well as their teacher the following year. 

Hill asked Bush how his plans on school choice played out in Florida — plans which many viewed as dismantling traditional public schools.

Bush helped set up the first charter school in Florida, Liberty City Charter School, which first taught 90 Black students whose parents chose to send their children there. These parents were directly involved with the school and, Bush said, helped shape how the school was governed. 

“That, to me, is what public education ought to be about. It ought to be driven by parents empowered with the decisions,” Bush said. “The school was successful. And it was a great learning experience.”

Bush said systems and processes are not what is important.

“I’ve never felt like the system is what needs to be protected,” Bush said. “It’s how do we make sure … we customize the learning experience where (children) are the ones that are front and center.”

Hill asked Bush about the weaknesses the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed in the educational system.

Bush said that the pandemic has made equity issues even more prominent. He gave an example: a parent who cannot work from home, with a child who cannot go to school. 

“That creates massive strains, not just on the education system but on family life, and we’re seeing it play out,” he said. “We’re seeing increases in drug use and foster care. Child abuse is up. Domestic violence is up. Alcoholism is up. These societal stresses have a direct impact, particularly on lower-income families and lower-income students.”

Bush also said that well-funded school systems have and had major issues with the pandemic; technical issues can interrupt or block virtual delivery, and students may only be able to attend remotely three times a week rather than six hours a day. 

“I have a lot of respect for people making these decisions all across the country, because there is no easy way to do this,” Bush said. “In this hyper-politicized environment, when you make a decision, someone’s going to be mad. Then when it doesn’t work exactly right, because there’s a lot of unknowns on this, you’re going to be criticized.”

Hill then asked Bush if systemic racism is an issue in the American education system specifically, and if it is, what action can be taken.

Bush talked about how KIPP Academy, one of the top-performing charter school organizations in the U.S., decided to stop using their motto “Work hard. Be nice.,” after George Floyd’s murder on May 25. 

“They had a big debate amongst their community … the families and the teachers, and they eliminated that, because the point was that systemic racism is so pervasive that working hard and being nice isn’t enough,” Bush said. “But they didn’t replace it with something, either.”

Bush thinks that there is systemic racism in education. One example he gave is that in Miami school districts, teachers who are higher paid — typically those who have been teaching in the area longer — can choose where they work. These teachers may move to schools that have students that are “more capable of taking on higher-order work.” 

“These are systemic elements of our system that end up disproportionately hurting lower-income kids that are disproportionately students of color,” he said. “So I do think that there’s systemic racism from that perspective.”

Bush said the best teachers should be teaching in the most-challenged schools, and they should be paid higher for working at these schools. 

“I’m not sure it’s inherently racist, that it’s designed to be racist, but the net effect is the same; and fixing it is important, rather than having the debate about what is systemic,” Bush said.

Hill’s final question was: If education were to be at the center of the next presidential debate, what question Bush would ask the candidates. 

“I would say, ‘Why aren’t you fixing the digital divide?’” Bush said. “‘Why don’t you make digital infrastructure the highest priority, so that this incredibly generous and prosperous country gives everybody a chance to be successful, making sure that everybody, every kid irrespective of the level of income, has a device that allows him to learn at home?’”

Pastries, coffee, kazoos, oh my! Smith Memorial Library to celebrate annual Library Day

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Chautauqua Residents Celebrated Smith Memorial Library’s 87th Birthday With A Kazoo Chorale On Thursday, August 2, 2018 Outside Of Smith Memorial Library. HALDAN KIRSCH/DAILY FILE PHOTO

Grab your coffee, your toaster strudels and your kazoos, and turn on those computer screens: It’s Library Day, people.

Chautauqua’s Smith Memorial Library turns 89 years old this year, and Scott Ekstrom is ready to celebrate. 

“We’re a community center: an iconic, beautiful building on Bestor Plaza,” said Ekstrom, the director of the Smith. “We always have as many books as we can get by those who speak at Chautauqua, and we encourage (Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle) membership. And our children’s room is an important space for intergenerational gatherings.”

At 9 a.m. EDT Thursday, Aug, 6, on the Chautauqua Institution Facebook Page, Library Day will commence, giving people from all around the country and the world a chance to honor Smith Memorial Library and to share their favorite books with each other, too.

“The library is the blood of the literary arts department,” said Sony Ton-Aime, Chautauqua’s director of literary arts. “It’s a very important day, because we want to encourage people to read, and the place to do so is the library. We want to keep this resource that we have alive.”

Library Day is hosted by the Friends of Smith Memorial Library, a group of library patrons who help promote and support the library in a variety of ways.

“Usually, the in-person version (of Library Day) includes inviting librarians from Western New York to the grounds,” Ekstrom said. “We’ll have no in-person physical gathering because of the pandemic, but most other things we’re trying to do digitally, with one exception — we will not have digital coffee or donut holes. So bring your own coffee or toaster strudel to your computer.”

A highlight of Library Day for the last six years is the kazoo chorale, Ekstrom said, which involves a group of Chautauquans — armed with kazoos — playing various songs on the library’s front steps.

“There’s not really any reason for it, except that it’s fun,” he said. “Obviously this year, we’re not going to be on the front steps, spitting on each other. So instead, we’re inviting people to email 30-second videos of either themselves or of so-called ‘quaranteam’ bands playing kazoos, to library@chq.org. We’ll be posting those videos on Facebook.”

Ekstrom said other Library Day highlights include a temporary Facebook profile frame that users can add to their profile pictures, as well as an opportunity to join the Friends of the Smith Memorial Library or make a gift to the library at smithlibrary.com.

A new frontier: CLSC Class of 2020 to graduate on a virtual Recognition Day

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RILEY ROBINSON/CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

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.”

RILEY ROBINSON/CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

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.”

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle Class of 2020 Graduates

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Editor’s note: Every year, The Chautauquan Daily publishes a list of names encompassing all of the graduates of that year’s Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle class. We are pleased to continue that tradition in the digital space.

 

CLSC Class of 2020 Graduates

Marisa Albridge

Suzanne Aldrich

Joan B. Alexander

Veida Ruth Bartholomew

Jessica L. Bertine

Nancy R. Blakely

JoAnn M. Borg

Annika L. Borg-Sundstrom

Vilma Bove

Samantha Busch

Marguerite Chandler

Melissa Charles

Susie Criswell

Claudia Cummins

Charles M. Denton

Beth C. Downs

Maria Emert

Kristen K. Evans

Susan Joy Evans

Janet Forbes

Lorraine Allen Gandy

Carol Ann Gardner

Elizabeth S. Goodwin

Judy Griffith

Grace M. Hanlon

Sandra Kay Harlan

Donald P. Hilbinger

Terriann L. Hilbinger

Judith E. Hinson

Alice Kramer Hood

Stephine L. Hunt

Mark Hurst

Emily Jensen

Jennifer June

Mary Joan Kitchen

Stephen A. Koch

Robert D. Lang

William J. Lawrence

Larry Lawson

Cathy L. Leiber

Jared Magoon

Ida R. Margolis

Charles F. Marshall

Susan H. Martin

Alexis McAvoy

Debra McKay

Lydia Chaverin McKenzie

Carol Grant McKiernan

Robert J. McKiernan

Tara Louise McKiernan

James Miller

Jeffrey Stephen Miller

Shane Arthur Miller

James Moffitt

Judith Annette Moffitt

Michael Moffitt

Susan Moffitt

David J. Munch

Donna Hicks Myers

Sheryl Neal

Anne B. Neville

Barbara Nicholson

Mary Jane Paine

Ruth M. Perkins

David S. Powers

Peter A. Pucella

Nathan C. Reeder

Sabeeha Rehman

Christine Schelhas-Miller

John Schelhas

Karen E. Schiavone

Barbara Schnure

Brenda L. Short

Janice Shoup

Rev. Charles G. Smith

George B. South Jr.

Caroline Stevens

Charlotte Stevens

Margo Pearl Stuart

Susan Syler

Jocelyn C. Taylor

Richard D. Telkamp

Claudia Helene Twist

Claude Welch

Charlotte Young

 

Guild of Seven Seals 2020 Graduates (All Levels)

The Guild of Seven Seals was founded in 1887 at Chautauqua as the graduate level of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle to recognize those who continue their personal reading and learning beyond the reading requirements of the CLSC and to celebrate those who emphasize the spirit of the CLSC and life-long learning each reading year. All CLSC Graduates may progress one level per reading year.

The Guild’s motto is: “To learn, to teach, to serve, to enjoy.”

Seven Seals ~ Read 14 more CLSC books = 26 total

Parnassian~ Read 21 more CLSC books above Seven Seals = 47 total

Olympian ~ Read 28 more CLSC books above Parnassian = 75 total

Centurion ~Read 35 more CLSC books above Olympian = 110 total

Miller Echelon of the Exalted Order of Chautauqua Founders ~ read 42 titles above Centurion = 152 total

Vincent Echelon of the Exalted Order of Chautauqua Founders ~ read 49 above Miller Echelon = 201 books

 

Seven Seals

Tracy L. Barret

Timothy L. Brown

William A. Burgunder Jr.

Arthur Burris

Laura Comay

Donna M. Dominick

Deirdre Dianne Gregory

Thomas Bradford Gregory

Christine Hammett

Valerie Haslett

Michael E. Hill

John D. Hudson

Kathleen Ann Hurst

Patti J. Komperda

Beth Lassi

Patricia McDonald

Griff McDonald

Shelley McVea

Carol Obernauer

Carol E. O’Connell

Larry Robinson

Pamela Lincoln Senfield

Carolyn Snider

Barbara A. Sochocki

Eileen Tenenbaum

Joan Vondra

 

Parnassian

Patricia S. Beagle

Elizabeth A. Beckhusen

Katharine F. Clark

Meredith Cohen

Maureen S. Corwin

Suzan M. Cwenar

Metta Flocke

Stephen Flocke

Carol Greetham

Linda Louise Horton

Donna Hanlon Jensen

Robb T. Jones

Carolyn M. Klinge

Andrew Masich

Deborah Masich

Ann-Barri Munday

Liz Propst

Paul Ritacco III

Thomas Rycroft

Ellen Shay

Laurie Stephens

Katie Eichenlaub White

 

Olympian

Kit Benson

Margaret B. Champion

Paul H. Champion

Ann McLaughlin

Sandra Sandoz

 

Centurion

Barbara Baker

Emily Carpenter

John C. Doney

Robert Douds

Marcia Lehr

Grace S. Lipman

Kimberly Lombard

Genevieve Madden-Koch

Phoebe McLelland

Charlie Martin

Robert A. Matson

Shanna Matson

Marion Mercer

Alice Pedersen

Janet Posner

Sigi Schwinge

Cate Whitcomb

 

Miller Echelon

Ruth Becker

Matt Charles

Margaret K. Edwards

Douglas Frazer

Gary F. Johnson

Sandra K. Johnson

Barbara C. Jones

Jane M. Kronenwetter

Margaret Mong

Carole Neely

Karen Schwartz

Reba Wright-Quastler

 

Vincent Echelon (Inaugural Class)

Catherine F. Backlund

Barbara Daly Blanchard

Alice A. Cripe

Karen S. Douds

Leslie Holder

Jeff Innes

Patricia Killewald

Jeffrey Miller

Sue Richardson

Janet R. Yauch

Sir Ken Robinson, education expert, discusses the current state of American education and how system must foster diverse range of mindsets

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“When you have a new generation, every child is a fountain of possibilities. They are a miracle of talent and potential,” said Sir Ken Robinson, professor emeritus at University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. “What becomes of that has everything to do with opportunity, with how they’re raised, and especially if they’re educated.”

Robinson said humans, like other animals, thrive under certain conditions. He said that the same is true in education, with many people losing their passion for learning if they’re not in the right conditions.

“Education is meant to be the system that encourages and cultivates learning, but a lot of children have a bad time with it,” Robinson said. “Schools in particular often see that appetite for learning beginning to fade.”

One innate characteristic of learning is endless creativity, which Robinson said comes with an endless curiosity.

“We’re not seeing the world as it is,” Robinson said. “We’re seeing it through frameworks of ideas or belief systems, according to the cultures that we grew up in.”

Humans collaborate on almost everything, but Robinson said that most education systems prioritize compliance and conformity, rather than creativity and collaboration. 

“Children are being educated in groups, but not as groups. They’re being judged against each other,” Robinson said. “They’re competing for the next level. They’re competing for places, beyond formal education, either in universities, or in some form of post-tertiary education.” 

Robinson is a world-renowned education expert and the most-watched speaker in TED Talk history; he is also the author of numerous books, including Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education and You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education. At 10:45 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform, Robinson presented his pre-recorded lecture titled “The State of the American Education System,” originally scheduled for Aug. 3 but postponed due to a family emergency, and aired without a live Q-and-A. He focused on the current qualities of American education, how the system of public education came to be and what education needs to look like to appeal and include a diverse range of mindsets. 

Many people believe that children are blank slates, ready to pick up traits and talents from their parents and community.

“If you’ve got children, (you know) that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Children are born fully loaded. Every one of them has a unique set of talents and possibilities — whether they discover them is a different matter,” Robinson said. “Human resources are very much like natural resources; that’s to say, they are very diverse.”

These talents are often buried beneath the surface, but Robinson said when people discover their natural talents, life takes on a different course. He also said that everyone lives with talents they have never found, and many people leave school prematurely because they believe they do not have any special talents.

“The current system is not based on diversity. It’s looking for a certain sort of talent, mainly academic ability,” Robinson said. “The consequence is that other sorts of talent are marginalized.”

He said that arts and physical education are viewed as recreational activities, which are often abandoned when the student becomes busier with areas that the education system values more. 

Robinson said many talents and skills cannot be measured and taught through conventional classroom means. His granddaughter, for example, is learning and discovering how to speak, and when teaching a child how to speak, people do not sit them down and explain nouns and verbs to them. 

“Honestly, nobody gets it,” Robinson said. “That’s embedded in the language and we just pick it up.”

Learning is also about developing young people, as well as nurturing their discovery. One example Robinson gave was teaching students calculus. 

“If you want to learn those things, it’s much better if you have experts, as it is in most fields, who can help you do that,” he said.

Robinson said education depends on keeping students curious and recognizing their talents, as well as keeping the learning process a social and collaborative experience. Where the current education system fails is focusing on certain areas of academic work, which Robinson said is “only a partial account of our capabilities.”

He said people “unconsciously divide the world into two types of children: the academic and the non-academic, or the able, and the less able.” 

“You do well, you can go on and be judged (as) the great success of the education system. If you don’t, you’re quite likely exposed to remedial programs to try and get you up to par,” Robinson said. “And if you don’t make it through those, you probably leave the system altogether, or you’re judged to be the failure.”

Robinson said one of the tragedies of American education is that each year huge numbers of young people leave school prematurely.

“I really dislike the term ‘dropout,’ because it implies that the children have failed the system. I think it’s much more accurate to say that the system failed them. Most children want to learn,” Robinson said. “It’s amazing how many successful creative people (have been) … written off in the school system.”

Robinson said the mass system of public education in the U.S. was created to meet demands, such as the need for higher-skilled workers during the Industrial Revolution, as opposed to the largely agrarian society of the past. The IQ test, which was first introduced during this era, was used in higher education, the military and mandated for immigrants. 

“It’s like coming into America, put in a Lamborghini and being given a driving test, and all you’ve ever had before is a horse and cart,” Robinson said. “There are skills and conventions here that you can’t just improvise.”

A more chilling use of the IQ test was in the military, Robinson said, where a person’s score often determined whether they lived or died. A high score meant they could be an officer, a lower score meant they were placed in the infantry.

“And if you’ve got below that level, the rather chilling memo, or category in the report, was of ‘low-military value,’” Robinson said. “We know what happened to people who were discounted in that sort of way.”

Along with conformity and compliance, Robinson said the current system of public education prioritizes linearity, meaning that schools prepare students for certain experiences in the future. An example of this is how many private schools see their students’ rate of acceptance into Ivy League schools as the biggest marker of success. 

“Most people have been increasingly prepared for university, and the consequences of this is an obsession that we start to weed the sheep and the goats,” Robinson said. “Children are groomed for university.”

Robinson said the public education system needs to shift from standardization and conformity to personalization, while also customizing education to the present times and circumstances. 

“Now, that’s not about lowering standards,” Robinson said. “On the contrary, we’ll see them rise.”

He said the public education system has three big elements that need to be changed: the amount of standardized testing, the primary focus on math, science and reading, and the neglect systems often show toward teachers. 

“The future of education is teaching, and the quality of it. It’s the teacher who inspires children. It’s the teacher who brings the expertise in the school,” Robinson said. “It’s the teacher who sees the potential, identifies the problems of learning, what’s happening in the local environment, and can devise strategies to deal with it on their own, but as part of the school’s job as well.”

Robinson said throughout the world, it has been demonstrated that improving education depends on investing in vibrant, well-qualified teachers. 

“Teachers have been seen as sort of delivery agents. It’s been based on the assumption that we need to make education teacher-proof, and you simply can’t,” Robinson said. “It’s like trying to make hospitals doctor-proof. It only works if the relationship is right.”

What Robinson laid out is not a theory; there are many examples of systems schools and teachers implementing more customized, collaborative and successful systems for their students. 

“(People say) that the birth of every child is a miracle. It’s true. Life is a miracle,” Robinson said. “And how can we come here, how we develop, is miraculous.”

‘Never the end:’ School of Music voice students to sing themes of hope and heartbreak in final recital

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ILLUSTRATION BY MADELINE DEABLER/DIGITAL EDITOR

“It’s kind of a funny story,” Melanie Long said, as to how her choice for the fourth and final voice recital of the season came to be. 

Long, a student from the Manhattan School of Music, will perform Italian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini’s “La Ricordanza.” Bellini actually recycled his own composition, and it’s hard for historians to tell whether this song was written first or whether Bellini transformed the aria afterwards into a song. Whatever the case may be, the piece is most familiar to listeners as Elvira’s aria “Qui la voce” in Bellini’s 1834 I Puritani.

“If I wrote something that brilliant, I would do the same thing; refurbish it and stick it on something else,” Long said. 

The piece describes human connectedness, according to Long, but at the same time, recounts “someone who was deeply, deeply in love with another, remembering how much she or he loved them, but also remembering how that person left them in the end.”

“We are all dealing with loss right now, whether that is from death, or the loss of not seeing our friends and family across the country,” she said. “Although (this piece) is about a lost love, it still has an ability to translate to grief in general — we are all grieving in some form.”

The greatest challenge: keeping her composure.  

“The whole time, I am trying not to get lost in that feeling of complete grief, because it can take over the performance if you let it,” Long said. 

Long will be joined by 10 other students from the Chautauqua School of Music Voice Program to perform in their final recital of the season at 7 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Aug. 5, on the CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch. 

Alexis Reed, a soprano from Oberlin Conservatory, will sing Gustav Mahler’s “Frühlingsmorgen” from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn,” which translates to “The Boy’s Magic Horn.” “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” are voice-and-piano and voice-and-orchestra settings of German folk poems chosen from a collection of the same name published in 1805.

“It’s an upbeat, cheery piece that always makes me happy, which is a really nice perk for this time,” she said. “This song, in my opinion, comes from the perspective of a sister telling her sibling to get up and get out because the sky is beautiful and the sun is out. It’s extremely sweet and caring in nature.”

The work has remained in Reed’s repertoire for “quite awhile,” and she said that means she carries with it a “lot of old mistakes,” especially in terms of German diction and interpretation. 

“As I have grown as an artist, this song has grown with me,” Reed said. “The biggest challenge is keeping it fresh for an audience and making sure that everytime I sing it, it feels like the first time.”

Joshua Carlisle, a tenor from Pacific Lutheran University, will perform Franz Lehár’s “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” from Das Land des Lächelns, which translates to “The Land of Smiles.” Das Land des Lächelns is a romantic operetta in three acts by the Hungarian composer, with German language libretto by Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner-Beda.

“Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” means Yours Is My Heart Alone.Carlisle said the piece about suppressing an “impossible and unrealistic love” is a standard in any tenor’s repertoire.

“It’s one of those tenor pieces that everybody does at some point,” Carlisle said. “It’s just something I have always wanted to sing and I have been waiting on my voice to catch up.” 

Carlisle learned the piece in the last two weeks, completely reliant on virtual coachings and previous recordings. 

“It’s a struggle of finding a recording where you love someone’s artistry and what they are able to do with the piece, while also recognizing when you can’t healthily do what they did with it,” he said. “I had to learn to sing the piece within the limitations of my instrument instead of trying to be somebody I am not.” 

For Long, the self-reflection inherent in perfecting a piece of music is part of the reason she loves “La Ricordanza” and feels obliged to conclude the summer’s programming by bringing its message to the digital stage. 

“(The piece) also represents that there is a hope as well,” Long said. “While we can look back on these things and learn from them and grow from them, it’s not the end. It’s never the end; no good story truly has an end.”

Judy Beals from Harvard’s Religious Literacy Project calls for past and present context in religious education

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Judy Beals’ favorite quote from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is also an antithesis to Beals’ pitch for injecting religion into cultural context.

“Diplomats in my era were taught not to invite trouble, and no subject seemed more inherently treacherous than religion,” Albright said.

But Beals brought up several case studies that she said indicated a need for expanded interfaith religious education: the U.S. government’s lack of understanding of Islam spurred the post-9/11 invasion of Iraq; the international community failed to understand the significance of burial practices in West Africa, which caused an isolated Ebola virus to go global; and most Americans learn about religion not from courses, but from movies and TV shows.

“We need to teach religion in schools, but not in the way you think,” Beals said.

Beals proposed teaching religion along with nuanced cultural context in her lecture, “Teaching Religion Through New Eyes,” at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 3.

Beals’ lecture launched Week Six of the Interfaith Lecture Series theme, “Lessons in the School House.” Chautauquans submitted questions during the livestream on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform, through the www.questions.chq.org portal or on Twitter with #CHQ2020. Vice President for Religion and Senior Pastor Gene Robinson joined Beals to deliver questions in a subsequent Q-and-A.

Beals is an associate director for Harvard’s Religious Literacy Project and is also an experienced human and civil rights attorney, former legislative aide in the U.S. Senate, a former state Assistant Attorney General and a nonprofit CEO.

Mainstream religion courses teach religions as if they are unchanging since inception, Beals said. While learning the basic doctrines, rituals, myths and symbols is still necessary — 66% of Americans in a study knew that the first book in the Bible was the Book of Genesis, but much less that the Dalai Lama was a Buddhist figure — religious education needs to touch on how religions affected past and present events.

“How does learning about the five pillars of Islam teach us about the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan?” Beals said. “The limitations of this are even more apparent when considering history. How can we know anything about Christian attitudes about the Crusades, the Inquisition or Christian support for chattel slavery?”

Beals said along with the negative effects of religion in history, there are also believers that use the same set of values for good.

“Though some Buddhists in Myanmar are involved in the persecution of Rohingya Muslims, others — based on their own Buddhist values and convictions — are opposing those actions,” Beals said. “And while it’s true that Evangelical Christians supported Donald Trump, others did not, including other white Christian Evangelicals. And similarly, many Muslims in Afghanistan and around the world oppose the Taliban. Understanding the diverse reasons of each of these actions is what is really important.”

Teaching religion with a non-devotional approach, which Harvard’s Religious Literacy Project proposes and provides resources for, observes multiple competing perspectives in religions without one superseding the other in importance.

One theme in this curriculum is that religions are not uniform and “internally diverse,” with a center mainstream and believers on the margins.

“Religion is a lived thing,” Beals said. “It is practiced as it is understood and adhered to by its adherents and its followers. And that means it is always changing and evolving. So two communities within the same branch may practice their religion very differently.”

A Catholic Mass in rural Uganda will differ from a Catholic Mass in France, as it would be different in the Philippines or in Latin America, Beals said. In Islam, women in some cultures are not required to wear a veil. Jewish kosher practice can be interpreted in multiple ways.

“Think about how often one hears things like, ‘Buddhists are nonviolent,’ or, ‘Islam promotes terrorism’ or, ‘Christians are socially conservative,’” Beals said. “These kinds of statements, no matter how well-meaning, are always over-broad and they are incorrect. It is too simplistic to capture the rich diversity of religious expression, and it is always something to stop when you hear it.”

Religions also change in response to historical and social conditions based on new opportunities, constraints and challenges framing those religions. While some religions claim to be unchanging over time for the sake of performing authenticity, Beals said that no person or institution remains static over time.

And it doesn’t end after a Mass, Shabbat or meditation concludes. It leaks into how nations shape their calendar and how companies grant holidays from work, as well as art, architecture, food and language. Even the U.S. justice system doesn’t go unscathed, Beals said, as it has direct ties to Calvinist ethics.

“For the practicing and the non-practicing alike, religious stories and allegories — think of the Good Samaritan, the golden rule, Mara and the Buddha, so many others — these are powerful influences of how people respond to adversity in their lives,” Beals said.

COVID-19, Beals said, is one such example of people looking to faith institutions for guidance. Some churches are operating as health care sites while others have become “super spreaders” for the virus. 

“We see a range of responses from faith communities to public health advice around public gatherings and so on. And we see that evolving and changing all of the time,” Beals said. “And frankly, I think religious services and practices will be forever changed by the coronavirus.”

Beals said that religious education should shed light on how religion is a nuanced influence on past and present moral justifications.

“Clearly throughout history and ongoing, religion has functioned to inspire and justify a range of human action, from the heinous to the heroic,” Beals said.

Done right, she said, religious literacy can also help students imagine a more just future and understand the world with religious context. One project where students came up with their own case studies included how Muslim women engage with New York Fashion Week and how Muslim astronauts pray toward Mecca while in space.

“It means they get to ask and are expected to ask the religion question anywhere,” Beals said. “They cannot assume religion is irrelevant to any situation.”

CSO’s principal flautist, bassoonist and clarinetist to showcase the “last row” woodwinds in Week Six Into the Music

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Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra Opens The Season With Conductor Rossen Milanov And Pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk Thursday, June 27, 2019 In The Amphitheater. VISHAKHA GUPTA/DAILY FILE PHOTO

Woodwind instruments —  flutes, oboes, saxophones, bassoons and clarinets  — are usually positioned in the last row of an orchestra. But for the Week Six edition of Into the Music with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, principal bassoonist Jeffrey Robinson, Rita and Dunbar VanDerveer Symphony Principal Chair for Flute Richard Sherman, and principal clarinetist Eli Eban plan to bring their reeds front and center.

“We want to take this opportunity to show what woodwinds bring to the game,” Robinson said. “We are a part of the mix, too, and what we bring to it is a color that tends to blend and be featured in different ways than the front.”

Robinson, Eban and Sherman will perform “What About Woodwinds?” at 8:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 4, on the  CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch. The program features Beethoven’s Duo No. 2 WoO 27 for clarinet and bassoon, William Hurlstone’s Trio in G Minor for bassoon, clarinet and piano, and Joachim Andersen’s “Pieces for Solo Flute.”   

The performance will begin with the Beethoven. Those duos, stylistically, belong to Beethoven’s earliest creative period, though both Robinson and Eban said there is no way to confirm if Beethoven actually composed them or if the duos were only dedicated to him. 

“Maybe Beethoven wrote them, maybe he didn’t — nobody really knows,” Robinson said. “The style is apparent enough that no one knows who it could be if not Beethoven.” 

Even with the duos’ lively character and “skilful play with timbre,” Eban said they are pieces “performed for fun at home” more than they are ever played as major pieces of chamber music for “any kind of audience.”

“You don’t hear them performed in public very often, which is sad because I think it shows the clarinet and bassoon at their best in terms of woodwind color, similar to what Beethoven does for those instruments even in his full orchestral compositions,” Eban said.

The selection by William Hurlstone is one of only a handful of works written for clarinet, bassoon and piano, one Robinson described as a “19th-century British Romantic piece.” Hurlstone began composing at age 9, and went on to win a scholarship to study piano and composition at the Royal College of Music, where he wrote the trio. However, at 30 years old, he died of bronchial asthma, something Robinson said the composer struggled with his entire life. 

It’s a harder fight to get there, but I think this performance shows that no matter what, a little bit of a labor of love like this is important for us to do for the Chautauqua community,” Robinson said. “I know they need this music, too.”

“We never got to see how his talents would have matured,” Robinson said. “Throughout his short life, he was always thought of as the top of the class, every piece well regarded. I feel so fortunate we can bring this to the attention of this community for what is most likely the first time.”

Nikki Melville, School of Music Piano Program co-chair, will join Eban and Robinson for the performance. 

“It’s a fuller orchestration due to the piano part, which is far from just an accompaniment to the other instruments,” Eban said. “It’s almost like she is playing a mini concerto for piano. It’s a beautiful addition to an already charming piece.”

Robinson, Eban and Melville will perform their selections live in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. Sherman, who will perform Andersen’s “Pieces for Solo Flute,” will join the livestream from his home in Michigan.

Robinson said the opportunity to rehearse and perform live on the grounds provided a “much-needed” sense of normalcy to his summer. 

“It’s a harder fight to get there, but I think this performance shows that no matter what, a little bit of a labor of love like this is important for us to do for the Chautauqua community,” Robinson said. “I know they need this music, too.”

Institution to celebrate Old First Night, welcome fundraising match program

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People watch as the Chautauqua community Band performs during the family-friendly Chautauqua Birthday celebration and Annual old First Night Concert. BRIAN HAYES/DAILY FILE PHOTO

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.”

Pilobolus dance company to screen footage from recent socially distant Five Senses Festival for Cocktails, Concerts and Conversations with Chautauqua Dance

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Dancers of Pilobolus perform a new piece of work the company created during their week-long residency that experiments with timing during an informal show Friday Aug. 16, 2019 at the Carnahan-Jackson Dance Studios. SARAH YENESEL/DAILY FILE PHOTO

At first glance Pilobolus, the self-styled “rebellious dance company” and Chautauqua Institution may seem like a strange pairing, but after two years of Chautauqua Dance residencies, it seems clear that opposites attract.

“I find that Pilobolus is always creating, collaborating and searching for ways to explore movement,” said Deborah Sunya Moore, Chautauqua’s vice president of performing and visual arts. “I will never forget them dancing in the Bestor Plaza fountain and teaching children and seniors alike to explore their own movement potential during their last residency at Chautauqua.”

Instead of returning for what would have been its third consecutive year at the Institution, Pilobolus’ Artistic Directors Renée Jaworski and Matt Kent will join Sasha Janes, Chautauqua Dance’s director of contemporary studies, for this week’s Cocktails, Concerts and Conversations with Chautauqua Dance. The event will air at 5 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 11, on the CHQ Assembly Virtual Porch. While originally scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 5, the conversation had to be postponed due to connection complications caused by Tropical Storm Isaias.

Jaworski and Kent will discuss the Connecticut-based company’s offbeat legacy, starting from its origins at Dartmouth College in 1971, when four of its original founders took a dance composition class together.

“They actually didn’t start as a formalized dance company per se, and I think that’s what makes them different, because they weren’t locked into any sort of regimented style,” Janes said. “They were just a bunch of people getting together and working out how to move their bodies in different ways, and by having no parameters they were free to do whatever they wanted.”

Piloblus, named after the phototropic fungus pilobolus crystallinus, made a name for itself through television appearances like its performance at the 79th Academy Awards and advertisements for Ford, Hyundai, the NFL and more.

Jaworski and Kent will screen brand-new footage from their annual Five Senses Festival, which was and held last weekend, July 31 to Aug. 2, reimagined this year to be socially distant.

“We’re going to be talking about all things Pilobolus,” Janes said. “How did they manage to pull off this performance when everyone else can’t?”

For this year’s Five Senses, participants could walk or drive through Spring Hill Vineyards in Washington, Connecticut, and witness musicians, Pilobolus soloists and art installations scattered across the grounds. Visitors could even enjoy a picnic in the vineyard as they watched.

“This summer, the Five Senses Festival will re-imagine shared experiences in ways to delight our community without stress and within the boundaries of a new environment,” the company wrote in a recent statement.

Jaworski and Kent will also discuss their plans for the company as it approaches its 50th anniversary next year. 

“Pilobolus is usually traveling the globe sharing our belief that the human form links all of humanity,” Jaworski and Kent wrote in the same statement. “While we have always felt that a ‘home season’ in our own backyards helps connect our neighbors more deeply to one another, living in the time of Coronavirus suggests that now more than ever our community needs engagement, because in engagement there is hope.”

“Hope and unity” All-male choir Cantus to tell stories through selections in ocean-themed concert

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Like sailors struggling to navigate the murky, ever-changing waters of the sea, Cantus faced challenges of its own in order to rehearse its ocean-themed showcase — weaving together stories of the journey, what is left behind, and what is just beyond that blue horizon. 

Cantus, an all-male choir, will perform its program “There Lies the Home” at 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Aug. 3, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform. Working without a conductor, members of the Minnesota-based group rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, each contributing to the entirety of the artistic process. Cantus is one of the nation’s few full-time vocal ensembles, performing more than 60 concerts each year.

We thought it was important to reinvent it, to tell the stories that were left out at the time, and to be representative of our mission statement, which is to give voice to human experiences,” Paz said.

Cantus tenor Alberto de la Paz, who has been with the group for two years, said Cantus will be performing together, in person, due to “Camp Cantus.” Each member of the ensemble — and anyone they live with — quarantined for two weeks at the beginning of July. They were tested for COVID-19 and after unanimous negative results, moved into a home in Iowa together to “rehearse and perform safely with one another.” 

“There was a lot of discussion leading up to it, of what we felt comfortable and safe doing,” Paz said. “The biggest motivation for us was to continue making music for all of the people out there who support our art and art everywhere.”

“There Lies the Home,” Paz said, was initially released 14 years ago, so for this year’s performance, the selections had to be “reinvented.” The original program was 90 minutes long, but the ensemble narrowed it down to nine pieces for their Chautauqua performance, bringing it to approximately 40 minutes. 

“We thought it was important to reinvent it, to tell the stories that were left out at the time, and to be representative of our mission statement, which is to give voice to human experiences,” Paz said.

“There Lies the Home” is based on stories of the sea, honoring the courage, despair and yearning of those who cross it, whether they are seeking opportunity and adventure, or fleeing persecution and hardship. The title is taken from a lyric of one of Irish composer Sir Charles Stanford’s five Songs of the Sea, Op. 91, for solo baritone.

To represent the varying viewpoints, Paz said the program also includes “speaking points” that come from “primary sources,” such as immigrants and people who were previously enslaved.

“When we were talking about traveling through the ocean, we were aware that not all of those travels were for discovery,” Paz said. “There were a lot of other people who were torn from their land and they had to travel through the seas and risk their lives to get to a better place.”

With repertoire such as “Shenandoah,” traditional spirituals like “Steal Away,” and the Lake Superior folk classic “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Paz said the show is built of a variety of sea shanties, songs once commonly used to accompany labor on large ships. “Steal Away,” he said, is a particularly beautiful piece that brings “reflection and thoughtfulness to the program.” 

“It shows the story of wreckage and the perils, risks and dangers of going out to the sea,” Paz said. 

The “beauty of this program,” Paz said, is that the meaning is different depending on what each individual listener is experiencing. 

“I think a lot of what people will experience in this show is a sense of uncertainty and a yearning for peace and safety,” Paz said. “At the end of the day, even though they are heart-wrenching stories that are hard to hear, this show speaks of hope and unity, and I think that is something we are all looking for during these times.”

This series is made possible by Bruce W. and Sarah Hagen McWilliams.

Michael Martin of the Haudenosaunees extends the story of Sky Woman on Interfaith Friday

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Details in the story of creation depend on who is telling it among the Haudenosaunee people — comprised of the Senecas, Oneidas, Mohawks, Cuyahogas, Onondagas and the Tuscaroras. Michael Martin, an Onondaga who was named faithkeeper for his Onondaga Beaver clan in 2016, gave Chautauqua his version of the story for Week Five’s Interfaith Friday.

The story of creation is passed down strictly through oral storytelling.

“The point of oral interpretation, the beauty of it, is that it’s supposed to stay alive in terms of the current context of things, too — in terms of how people utilize this information, or how they’re supposed to,” Martin said.

Institution Vice President of Religion and Senior Pastor Gene Robinson joined him in conversation on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, July 31. Martin answered questions from the audience, who submitted questions through the www.questions.chq.org portal and on Twitter with #CHQ2020.

Martin is also executive director of the Native American Community Services of Erie and Niagara Counties. But when his clan mother tapped him for the role of faithkeeper for his clan, his family, Martin said he felt ill-prepared.

Robinson said this was a shared experience for many faith leaders.

“Those who feel called to that never feel up to the job,” Robinson said.

Martin started where Beth Roach left off in the creation story of Sky Woman in her Interfaith Lecture Series talk in Week One of the Chautauqua season. In Martin’s version, Sky Woman fell from the sky and landed on a turtle’s back. She gave birth to a daughter, and the daughter later gave birth to twin boys. She gave birth to the second son through her armpit, and died.

Corn, beans and squash, known as the Three Sisters, bloomed from her grave. The three crops are still grown at the same time, richening the soil so they all grow stronger together.

The twin boys, meanwhile, fought constantly. Martin said this is meant to represent an internal struggle we all have for balance and harmony within ourselves, with each other and with nature.

The first son would later be known as the creator of humans, and ruled over the day. The second son would be known as Flint, who ruled over the night. The twins competed all the time, and through competition they balanced each other. The creator crafted a rose, and the other, Flint, added thorns to the rose. The creator carved a river, and Flint added rapids to the river. When the creator formed a bird, Flint, who Martin said was not as skilled at creating, made a bat.

But the original Sky Woman, their grandmother, favored Flint. Martin said that he was not evil, but simply contrasted with the creator. When Sky Woman died, the brothers fought again. This time, it was over her body. The creator, jealous of Flint, threw Sky Woman’s body into the sky where she became the moon.

When the creator formed humans, he made them from four different elements. The four peoples were ordered to travel in opposite directions in search of a lost object that is usually described as shiny. Some day, they will be called to return to each other to unify humanity in a time of need — a prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled.

Martin said that as scientific discoveries have unfolded, they have only proven the story of creation to him. He sees the pieces of the turtle’s back in maps of plate tectonic movements. And the Three Sisters really do grow better together, thanks to the beans that add nitrogen into the soil and wrap around the tall cornstalk, while squash growing at the bottom deters weeds.

“To me, it kind of helps to reinforce our understanding of creation, too,” Martin said. Even today, when I see a meteor shower, it reminds me of the story of creation and how things began so many generations ago.”

Babies are first exposed to the oral storytelling of creation a few days after being born, through a speech on their responsibility for the earth and the call to respect nature and all of creation. The “Ganohę:nyoh,” or “Thanksgiving address,” is a major moment of gratitude for the gifts of creation.

No part of Earth is ignored in the Thanksgiving address. People, Mother Earth, water, fish, trees — it’s all important on the only observed planet that can support humanity.

“How many people pass trees every day and don’t pay them any mind or attention?” Martin said. “Without those trees and those plants taking our CO2 that we expel and turn it back into oxygen for us, we can’t live on this planet. This Thanksgiving address really goes back to our creation, reciting and giving our appreciation and respect to all of these gifts of creation that were intended to keep us healthy and well.”

While there are differences in interpretation in the delivery of the story of creation between people and tribes, which Martin said have each suffered different traumas, a peacekeeper once served as a messenger between the various tribes. He traveled to each tribe and called for the strongest warrior to break an arrow, which they would do with ease. But when asked to break five arrows bound together, it became impossible. This peacekeeper proved to each tribe that like the arrows, the tribes were stronger together, and he united the tribes once again under what was called the Great Law of Peace.

Martin said he sees the laws of the Haudenosaunees echoed throughout the U.S. founding fathers’ ideologies and the Constitution. He equated the council of Clan Mothers to the U.S. Supreme Court, the older brother tribes as the Senate, and the younger brothers — including his tribe, the Onondagas — as the House of Representatives.

In the Great Law of Peace, the call for unity did not stop with the Nations. It extended to all people. Even now in meetings, the Haudenosaunees refer to the United States as their “white brothers.”

This deepens the betrayal of European colonists during the initial settlement of North America.

“From our (perspective), how could you do that to another brother?” Martin said. “There is trauma from that.”

Pandemics are portals to the future; embrace the divine within the disruption, Callahan says

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“We are in the midst of a global pandemic, and the amount of disruption is difficult to fathom. None of us has ever lived through something like this,” the Rev. Leslie D. Callahan told her virtual congregation. “The last time we saw anything like this was in 1918.”

The Week Six chaplain of the week preached at the 10:45 a.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 2, service of worship and sermon on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform. Her sermon title was “Divine Disruption,” and the scripture text was Romans 7: 14-25 (NRSV) —

“For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

“Two months ago, with the death of George Floyd at the proverbial hands of the police and literally by the knee, the mantra ‘Black Lives Matter’ could be heard everywhere,” she said.

There were massive protests not only in major cities, not only by African Americans, not only by the young, “but in hamlets across the nation, you could hear the chanting ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Callahan said.

The nation learned about Juneteenth, and the National Football League will use the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” before playing the “Star Spangled Banner.”

“Something is afoot in the nation, and Black Lives Matter is being embraced in unexpected places and by unexpected people,” she said. “These are important disruptions of the ways things always have been. People are daring to institutionalize Black Lives Matter to bring down Confederate monuments.”

Callahan warned that it was too soon to declare victory. “The end of white supremacy requires something deeper than a mantra.”

She told a story of a colleague, the long-time director of a grassroots organizing group dedicated to ending racial discrimination. The group moved into a new building and, one day, they welcomed a visitor. 

The visitor was let into the building, came into the office and said, “Have you heard your doorbell?” The director said, “No, why?” The visitor said, “I think you should have a listen.”

The director went downstairs and pushed the doorbell. It played “Dixie.”

Callahan said, “They had moved into a building that was whistling ‘Dixie,’ and they had not heard it. This is what it means to live in the United States in spaces where injustice has thrived for so long. Even as they were seeking to dismantle racism, they kept rebuilding it. While trying to free people from white supremacy, every time their doorbell rang, it whistled ‘Dixie.’”

In Romans 7, Paul is talking about his individual struggle with sin. He wrote that he often did not do the good he wanted to do, and often did the evil he did not want to do.

“This is often how individuals feel and act,” she said. “But the text also speaks of the way we are formed in a tradition. We are in a space where white supremicist ideology is rampant, and this speaks to the United States’ need for a Black Lives Matter as a movement.”

That was the intention of the Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — a movement goes beyond the bad acts of individuals and beyond just private conversations, Callahan said.

She continued, “We need disruption and change in ways that are fundamental and radical. Otherwise we are in a space where the door plays ‘Dixie.’ It is a moment to remember centuries of slavery, Jim Crow and other discrimination. It could be a moment to feel despair, but this is where the divine comes in the disruption.”

A pandemic is a portal to the future. You can walk through the portal and bring all the past with you or you can walk through lightly and be ready to fight for the new world,” Callahan said.

Paul was in a place of despair, and in that moment the Spirit of God nudged him to wakefulness.

“The Spirit nudges us, too, into a place of hope,” Callahan said. “We have tried and failed to root out the white supremecist ideology and structure.”

Instead of giving up, the faithful remember that delivery is possible. God takes disruption and uses it to make something better and greater. God sent Jesus to live a common life, to speak to the conditions of his time. 

“God nudged Jesus to his destiny on the cross and raised him from the dead,” she said. “God does not leave us in a place of despair. In the space between Romans 7, verse 24 and verse 25, the divine shows up. Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ.”

Callahan continued, “Faithful people, who believe in the efficacy of God’s work in Jesus Christ, believe not only that redemption is possible, but it is already in progress. Thanks be to God in the midst of disruption.”

Throughout history, pandemics have forced people to break from the past and imagine a new world.

“A pandemic is a portal to the future. You can walk through the portal and bring all the past with you or you can walk through lightly and be ready to fight for the new world,” Callahan said.

Every crisis is a crossroads, every pandemic is a divine disruption.

She concluded, “We don’t have to live in despair; we can take the road that leads to life. We can cast our burdens down and take up God’s offer of peace and rest. Embrace the divine in the midst of disruption.”

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, vice president for religion and senior pastor of Chautauqua Institution, presided from the Hall of Christ. Joshua Stafford, interim organist for Chautauqua Institution, played the Tallman Tracker Organ. Michael Miller, a Chautauqua Opera Apprentice Artist, served as vocal soloist. The organ prelude, performed by Stafford, was “Chant d’Août,” by Joseph Jongen. Miller sang the gathering hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” The anthem was “Priez pour paix,” by Francis Poulenc, sung by Miller. The offertory hymn was “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine,” by Phoebe P. Knapp, words by Fanny Crosby and sung by Miller. “Hear My Prayer, O Lord,” from Biblical Songs by Antonín Dvořák, was the offertory anthem with Miller as the soloist. Miller sang the choral response. Stafford played “Toccata,” by Théodore Dubois, for the postlude. This program is made possible by the Carnahan Jackson Memorial Chaplaincy and the Harold F. Reed, Sr., Chaplaincy.

Notes on today’s music: In September of 1938, the composer Francis Poulenc found a 15th-century prayer written by Charles of Orléans while he was a prisoner of war reprinted in Le Figaro. At a time of great anxiety, with the Second World War looming, these words inspired Poulenc to compose his song, “Pray for Peace.” At a time now of worldwide anxiety, these words seem just as relevant: 

“Do not weary of our prayers. Pray for peace, the true treasure of joy.”

In three weeks in March of 1894 in New York, just a few months after the premiere of his beloved New World Symphony, Antonín Dvořák began composing his Biblical Songs. Perhaps feeling homesick, these settings of Psalms were originally composed in his native Czech from the Kralice Bible. This morning we heard in English his setting of Psalms 61 and 63, “Hear my prayer, O Lord.”

BTG, volunteers, gardens staff inventory all plants in Institution gardens

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PHOTO COURTESY OF ANGELA JAMES

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.”

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