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Cathrael Kazin discusses need for new college model as traditional model fails students

by Maggie Prosser on July 31, 2018

Cathrael Kazin of Volta Learning Group discusses the challenges facing higher education on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, in the Amp. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cathrael Kazin of Volta Learning Group discusses the challenges facing higher education on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, in the Amp. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cathrael Kazin of Volta Learning Group discusses the challenges facing higher education on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, in the Amp. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cathrael Kazin of Volta Learning Group discusses the challenges facing higher education on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, in the Amp. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

College isn’t working.

“I believe that not only is higher education failing to do the job it claims to be doing, I believe it is woefully unprepared to do the job it needs to be doing,” said Cathrael Kazin, an expert in competency-based learning and assessment. “Our higher education system, which is not a system at all, … is no match for the future of work, much less the present.”

Kazin stressed the need to reinvent higher education and education’s integral role in Week Six’s theme, “The Changing Nature of Work,” at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Tuesday, July 31, in the Amphitheater.

The arc of her career has been focused on education; a recovering academic, Kazin serves as managing partner of Volta Learning Group, which designs learning and credentialing systems for industry professionals. She was the founding chief academic officer of College for America at Southern New Hampshire University, where she created an award-winning competency-based model focused on projects rather than exams and papers.

Kazin’s work centers on reimagining postsecondary education for the new college student: adults. The traditional student is evolving, and institutions are not keeping up, which is the first of five factors contributing to lower retention and college graduation rates, she said.

“Despite the stereotype, most college students are not 18- to 22-year-olds, living on campus, sheltered from the so-called ‘outside world’ and enjoying deep, philosophical discussions under leafy trees in between bouts of beer pong.”

-Cathrael Kazin, Managing partner, Volta Learning Group

Instead, 45 percent are over the age of 22, more than half live off campus, 28 percent have children, more than half are employed and many live below the poverty line.

“(The new college student) is juggling real-world responsibilities,” Kazin said. “Many face what is euphemistically called ‘food insecurity’ — they’re hungry. They’re worried about where their next meal is coming from or where their children’s next meal is coming from. It’s hard to focus on your studies when you’re distracted by the myriad realities of poverty.”

The traditional college model doesn’t accommodate the realities of students’ lives. Full-time employees can’t attend class during the day, do homework while tending to their kids or pay costly tuition fees, Kazin said. Moreover, the road to graduation is littered with confusing and arbitrary general education and developmental class requirements.

Often, students — whether they come from the top or bottom 1 percent of their class — are forced to take entry exams when coming into college; students’ classes are picked accordingly based on their results. Some are forced to revert to basic math or English classes — classes that don’t count toward graduation or major requirements.

“I want us to rethink the (word) ‘vigor’ like rigor — like we’re supposed to continue to inflate silly requirements that actually prevent students from reaching their goals,” she said. “We’re focused on what professors think should be taught and what they want to teach, but not what students need to learn.”

“Rigor” is a key word in the American dialogue around college; while social attitudes stress attending selective institutions, Kazin said, the majority of students are leaning toward and enrolling in nonselective colleges.

The difference between the two institutions, she said, is graduation rates; a nonselective school’s graduation rate is likely to be lower compared to a school with a slim acceptance rate — a result of affluence, supportive families and quality primary schools, Kazin said.

But across the board, students come into college unprepared and leave unprepared for the workplace, she said; 90 percent of students said they display professionalism and an appropriate work ethic — 42 percent of employers agree. Nearly 80 percent said their communication skills were proficient — less than 42 percent of employers agree.

“These gaps in perception hold true across … critical thinking … problem solving, teamwork, collaboration and so on,” she said. “And these really are the things employers care about, so the third major reason why students are often unengaged in their education is that they know it isn’t preparing them for anything.”

Kazin said most postsecondary options prep students for college itself, not life outside of the halls of the institution. Additionally, students see graduation as the end of learning.

The model of higher education is static, she said. Society continues to value a degreed education over ideas of lifelong, continuous or workplace learning. Take credit hours for example; the credit hour measures classes’ worth. To earn a bachelor’s degree, on average, requires 120 credit hours — nothing less, Kazin said. But the credit hour has taken on a greater meaning. It’s the difference between an accolade and a failure.

“So why are we still focused on a single credential earned when they are so out of essence?” she said. “How can we ensure that people both have access to the learning they need and that this learning is passionate somehow, regardless of how it happens, where it happens and how long it lasts? We need, basically, a lifelong transcript.”

A lifelong transcript is not the college transcript — it’s a compilation of continuous learning that demonstrates aptitude through competency, not arbitrary letters, Kazin said, and these letters tell employers and students nil about what they retained from a college education. Exams don’t push students to think critically; rather, they regurgitate terms and concepts onto a test, often cramming information moments before.

Kazin asked: Would you trust a phlebotomist who has never taken blood, only exams, or a truck driver who has never driven, only been lectured on how to drive?

“This focus on content knowledge at the expense of skills or competencies essentially strips its students of agency,” Kazin said. “… At best, it turns students into the passive recipients of knowledge. In fact, our fundamental approach to higher education inculcates passivity, which is, of course, inherently infantilizing.”

The solution to this deficiency is experiential learning, she said. One can take courses in breadmaking, but to prove competency must knead physical dough and attempt to raise physical bread.

“Experiential learning, whether it’s through simulations or projects or on-the-job, also helps learners develop the critical awareness of how more abstract concepts apply — it’s not just for baking bread,” Kazin said. “But this cannot happen when the learner isn’t doing anything but taking notes. So one thing we need to do, I think, now, is to change our focus from content to competency.”

In the future, Kazin hopes educators can look back disgusted at colleges’ interference with student development and the lack of financial aid. She hopes they’ll be astonished by credit hours, seat time and courses of yore. She hopes they’ll be floored that employers and institutions didn’t meet each others’ demands or that people believed only accredited institutions could educate.

For now, however, Kazin lives and encourages others to live by the words of Michelangelo:

“I am still learning.”

After the conclusion of Kazin’s lecture, Geof Follansbee, chief executive officer of the Chautauqua Foundation and vice president of development, opened the Q-and-A. He asked for examples of revolutionary changes to education and what their results were.

“There are schools that have been doing experiential learning, including in New York state … and people have been doing competency-based learning for quite a few years,” Kazin said. “Regrettably, there are enormous regulatory hurdles.”

She then listed universities that are incorporating alternatives to higher education into their model, including Stanford University and Georgia Institute of Technology.

“So it’s happening in pockets, but there are tremendous pressures to maintain the status quo. Many of them have to do with financial aid, which is really the undercurrent throughout everything,” Kazin said.

Follansbee then turned to the audience for questions; one attendee asked if Kazin had advice for students currently navigating college.

Kazin stressed the importance of internships and clubs during college as a way to demonstrate abilities to employers.

“I feel for you. … I would say, try not to listen to your parents and don’t worry so much,” she said. “And don’t get yourself into more debt than you can afford.”

Joan Chittister illustrates how mastering humility could save America

by Jamie Landers on July 31, 2018

Joan Chittister, OSB, speaks as a part of the Interfaith Lecture Series on Monday, July 30, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Joan Chittister, OSB, speaks as a part of the Interfaith Lecture Series on Monday, July 30, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Joan Chittister, OSB, speaks as a part of the Interfaith Lecture Series on Monday, July 30, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Joan Chittister, OSB, speaks as a part of the Interfaith Lecture Series on Monday, July 30, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. HALDAN KIRSCH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Joan Chittister believes every major institution in American society, including marriage, family, government, education, work and church, is in a “state of turmoil, breakdown, division and decline.”

However, she has a game plan to turn things around: a list of 12 principles from a sixth-century saint she thinks has the potential to save humankind from itself.

At 2 p.m. Monday, July 30, in the Hall of Philosophy, Chittister, a Benedictine Sister and women’s rights activist, gave her lecture, “The Spirituality of Relationship: A New Paradigm for Work,” as part of Week Six’s interfaith theme, “A Spirituality of Work.”

“Our world, the United States, is tilting and turning in ways we never thought possible,” she said. “The headlines in our daily papers are a cacophony of rage and violence, of control and power plays, of personal insult and class competition. What ever happened to the heart of it?”

Chittister said the “torturous twist of American ideals” has been occurring for generations and began with the Enlightenment movement of the 18th century.

“With its emphasis on human reason as its primary source of authority, (the Enlightenment) undermined both the divine right of kings and the absolutism of church law,” she said. “Those were surely good things, (but) they were also surely dangerous ones.”

The Enlightenment swept across Europe and affected six major countries: France, Germany, England, Russia, Italy and then the United States.

“Each of them absorbed it in different ways,” Chittister said. “The American response was the (creation of the) Constitution of the United States and its emphasis on individual rights and democratic participation.”

The glorification of individual rationality began in 1784 when philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote an essay titled “Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?”

“He put in one searing sentence the essence of the movement when he wrote, ‘dare to know and have courage to use your own reason,’ ” Chittister said.

Chittister believes people began to embrace their individuality, which caused a “revolt against meaningful philosophy.” This sparked feelings of uncertainty in regard to religion.

“While elements in the laboratory and galaxies in space made even the concept of God uncertain, if not actually suspect, there was no unity of faith left, no certainty of belief, no common commitment to just about anything,” Chittister said. “Everything, everything was up for grabs now.”

Chittister said the emphasis on scientific achievement led Americans to concentrate solely on the concept of “the self.”

In the early 19th century, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel defined self as the“life and death struggle with the other,” Chittister said.

“He argued, in other words, that the self is ‘will and power in contest with the will and power in others,’” she said. “So the eternal war for personal preeminence begins.”

The war for personal preeminence was the beginning of the narcissism epidemic, Chittister said.

“The need to be first, the greatest, unparalleled and unequaled, both personally and nationally, now followed swift and sure,” she said.

In 1968, for the first time in medical history, psychologists identified the narcissistic personality as a personality disorder. Chittister said this meant Hegel’s warning “became the nature of modern society.”

“Kim Jong Un wants his own nuclear weapon, Amazon wants to own every store, Russia wants to be indomitable, Xi Jinping wants unlimited power and the United States ignores international negotiations to satisfy its own agenda, regardless of the effect of that on other nations of innocent people,” she said. “‘The self’ reigns everywhere now.”

Chittister believes the cure for modern-day narcissism and pride does not rely on one concrete solution. Instead, she thinks 12 principles written in the sixth century by Benedict of Nursia, a patron saint of Europe, called the “Spirituality of Humility,” would work.

“(St. Benedict) simply decided to change people’s opinions about what life had to be by himself living otherwise and refusing to accept the debauched social and moral standards around him,” Chittister said.

In the first principle, Benedict teaches people to “reverence the God who we call abba, father, daddy, parent,” Chittister said.

“He is saying God is love,” Chittister said. “Our entire spiritual life,the way you and I live and feel and respond to others and to all of life, depends on the way we define God.”

The second principle says to “love not our own will.”

“This second step to humility (tells) us that God wills the same good for all the people on the planet, and to accept God’s will above my own is in essence to promise that we ourselves will not obstruct good for others in any way, anywhere,” she said.

Chittister believes if society followed the second principle, racism would be impossible and the United States would have to rethink its immigration and foreign policies.

“We would surely not be doing anything as a nation that would destroy, pollute, poison or extinguish the ecology of creation,” she said. “We would not be playing God ourselves, and we would make national choices that allow the whole world to flourish.”

The third principle is to accept the direction of others to learn from their wisdom.

“When pride is no longer permitted to exclude anyone from the system, when everyone is invited into the decision-making process, the entire system itself becomes a humble one,” Chittister said. “Our world now is to learn as individuals, to listen in such a way that critics can be seen as collaborators rather than enemies and partisanship becomes a thing of the past.”

The fourth principle teaches to persist in doing good work even when growth is slow, discouraging or seems to fail.

“As a result, we learn the ways of people who do things other than we would do them, and we discover that the world does not end when it functions in someone else’s way,” she said.

The fifth principle is to regularly confess sins.

“Self-disclosure always leads to growth,” Chittister said. “It separates us from our false images, it drains away the little hypocrisies that have taken seed, it ends all our puny little charades so other people think we think we are as good as they think we are, and it frees our real self to grow.”

Chittister said the fifth principle saves people from the burden of perfection because they have to admit they are flawed.

“The struggles we hide consume our energies and they hold us captive to our secrets,” she said. “But who or what can diminish you if you admit them yourselves? Who is it that we would not love if we only knew their stories?”

The sixth principle teaches one to be content with lowliness and how to deal with the disappointments of life.

“We are called, in other words, not to accept humiliations,” she said. “No one should accept humiliations. That is an American corruption of humility. It is no part of humility at all.”

The seventh principle teaches people to accept internal mediocrity.

“We are not superior to anybody, not anybody at all,” Chittister said. “In fact, if truth were known, we would know that we are, in some way, inferior to all.”

Chittister believes once people can admit to their own inferiority, “all divisions become conformable.”

“Your work and my work in a global world has got to be to make connections, real, personal, flesh and blood connections with those most unlike us so that we can all discover how really alike we are,” she said.

The eighth principle of humility teaches one to uphold the examples taught by the communities and traditions one was raised in.

“On a public level, the eighth degree of humility is challenging us to explain how in the light of our national tradition, experiences, and what we say have been our community ideals, we are still calling ourselves Americans while we ignore our history of accepting strangers with open arms,” she said.

The ninth principle teaches one to be silent so others can be heard.

The 10th principle says not to laugh at or ridicule others.

The 11th principle says nothing that demeans or hurts another is funny.

The 12th and final principle says to always bear things humbly in one’s heart.

Chittister said these last four principles work together to represent the kind of behavior Americans must practice in order to become balanced individuals who contribute positively to society.

“The great work of this time is to recover civil discourse, to acquire character as a quality of leadership, to raise children of the next generation to respect every human being, however unlike themselves,” Chittister said.

Above all, Chittister said it is most important to remember that “time changes nothing, people do.”

“I came here to remind you, most of all, you are the only missing element in the accomplishment of all of these things. If the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow. Lead dear friends, for all our sakes.”

—Sister Joan Chittister, OSB

Cathrael Kazin to discuss future of education and its implications for the future of work

by Maggie Prosser on July 30, 2018

For Cathrael Kazin, the future of learning is the future of work.

“There are so many discussions in the higher-ed community, even among people who are interested in reform of higher-ed, that take place without any reference to the future of work,” Kazin said. “It seems to me that the two conversations have to happen together so that post-secondary education, in general, will help people and our society meet these unimaginable challenges.”

Kazin will discuss challenges facing higher education and new methods for learning at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Tuesday, July 31, in the Amphitheater to continue Week Six’s theme, “The Changing Nature of Work.”

An expert on competency-based learning and assessment, Kazin serves as managing partner of Volta Learning Group; Volta designs new learning and credentialing strategies for industries.

Most of Kazin’s work is focused on adults — the new college student.

“(College students are) adults, a third of them are parents, a lot of them are really poor; they aren’t residential students, they’re not on campus; they may be learning online or through hybrid (models),” she said. “They’re not going to selective institutions.”

Kazin attributes the changing model of the college student to two factors: evolving technology and shifting demographics.

“We know that the technology we have today has changed vastly … and yet, higher education still acts as though that seminal experience when you’re 18 to 22 is supposed to prepare you for the changing world,” she said. “Everything we know about technology is that the rate of changes is exponential, but we are still content to have this very slow and laborious and risk-averse approach to learning.”

Aside from technology, demographics of college students are changing; the traditional 18-to 22-year-old is not the majority of most college students, in fact, that student is becoming “sparser and sparser,” Kazin said.

“The learners that really need access to higher education — they are people of color, they are adults, they are working,” she said. “That model in which you are supposed to leave your life for four years or six years and then be in debt for the rest of your life, that actually isn’t going to work for that many people anymore,” she said.

A model Kazin sees advancing post-secondary education is one she established as chief academic officer of College for America at Southern New Hampshire University. Her award-winning, competency-based curriculum centers around projects, not exams.

This is not the first education-workplace revolution, Kazin said. The Industrial Revolution saw changes in education with the move from home- based work to factory production lines.

“Along with that factory model came a lot of ideas about efficiency and uniformity,” she said “… Some of these ideas actually infected higher education, like children sitting in rows (of desks).”

In the present day, Kazin said, the onset of the distributive workplace — where people may work from home on a computer or in a call center—is changing work, and education hasn’t kept up. According to Kazin, 95 percent of chief academic officers and provosts think their schools are doing a good job of preparing students for the workplace; 11 percent of employers agree.

“I think it has to change,” she said.

Arun Sundararajan talks crowd-based capitalism, changing nature of work

by Maggie Prosser on July 30, 2018

NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan takes a photos of the crowd during his talk on crowd-based capitalism during the morning lecture, Monday, July 30, 2018, in the Amphitheater. BRIAN HAYES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan talks about crowd-based capitalism and the changing landscape of work during the morning lecture, Monday, July 30, 2018, in the Amphitheater. BRIAN HAYES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan talks about crowd-based capitalism and the changing landscape of work during the morning lecture, Monday, July 30, 2018, in the Amphitheater. BRIAN HAYES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan takes questions from the audience during his talk about crowd-based capitalism and the changing landscape of the work, Monday, July 30, 2018, in the Amphitheater. BRIAN HAYES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
NYU Stern School of Business professor Arun Sundararajan talks about crowd-based capitalism and the changing landscape of work during the morning lecture, Monday, July 30, 2018, in the Amphitheater. BRIAN HAYES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Anyone who’s taken an Uber, hosted an Airbnb or sold an empty seat through BlaBlaCar has contributed to crowd-based capitalism, Arun Sundararajan said at the 10:45 a.m. morning lecture Monday, July 30, in the Amphitheater, opening Week Six, “The Changing Nature of Work.”

Sundararajan is a professor and the Robert L. and Dale Atkins Rosen Faculty Fellow at New York University’s Stern School of Business. At NYU, he researches the sharing economy and the future of work, which was the topic of his book, The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism.

Crowd-based capitalism is a model in which users pool ideas, content and resources on a platform where consumers can utilize those assets, search per their requirements, produce content and cultivate demand, Sundararajan said.

“YouTube is an early example of this model of crowd-based capitalism — a platform that aggregates demand, provides search and discovery, provides trustful risk management — that actually leaves the production of the stuff consumers are coming there for, or businesses are coming there for, to a distributed and heterogeneous crowd,” he said. “That’s the crowd in crowd- based capitalism.”

YouTube is now the predominant source for online video distribution and consumption, surpassing traditional, institution-based television programming with more “subscribers” than any other TV station in history, Sundararajan said.

Similarly, Airbnb, a crowd- based platform for travel accommodations, is built on this principle; the company lists individuals’ properties for rent, competing with hotels and other traditional accommodations. The company’s “distributed and heterogeneous crowd,” Sundararajan said, is out-performing most national chains.

“(Airbnb hosts) aren’t simply an on-demand labor,”he said.“They set prices, they manage inventory, they self-merchandise, … they provide customer service; they build a brand in some way — their reputation on the platform.”

Crowd-based capitalism is seeping into other industries as well: venture capitalism, grocery stores, law firms, health care, energy production and, most noticeably, ride-sharing and car rental services. BlaBlaCar, a French twist on ride-sharing apps like Uber, allows users to sell empty seats in their cars.

BlaBlaCar has created an international transportation system without investing in physical infrastructure, Sundararajan said.

“They have invested in digital infrastructure,” he said. “The key investment … is in digital trust. This is central to the shift in how we organize work.”

Twenty years ago, buying items on eBay proved risky. What if the item came damaged? What if the seller wasn’t paid? Now, however, the stakes are higher; people choose to ride with, open their homes to, or invest their money in strangers. With the increasing level of risk, Sundararajan said, comes an increasing level of trust — those leaps of trust are helping scale crowd- based capitalism.

“In many ways, we are seeing an emergence of a new infrastructure for commercial trust,” he said. “ … As the institutions of trust evolve, the way we organize economic activity evolves as well. And so, I believe that crowd-based capitalism and the distributed independent form of work will grow very rapidly as we get more confident in these digital trust infrastructures.”

Work is changing, Sundararajan said, with the shift to digital fundaments — specifically, artificial intelligence in the workplace. He stressed the historical patterns of eras threatened by machines at work; first during the Industrial Revolution, when the need for human labor decreased and people transitioned to new industries, and again in the 1970s when manufacturing in the United States plummeted.

However, for Sundararajan, this new wave of widgets is different. The shift from full-time employment to independent contract work, like that of Uber drivers and Airbnb hosts, is opening the door to an AI takeover.

“There is a redivision of what the company does and what the individual does that is quite different from the model that we got used to in the second half of the 20th century — full-time employment,” he said. “And so, while just two out of five people in the United States today earn their income from something other than a full-time job, this number is going to grow dramatically as platform-based, crowd-based capitalism becomes more popular and becomes more widespread.”

The increased need for “on-demand” labor has effects on the greater economy, he said. For freelance workers, they have to forge their own relationships with institutions typically guaranteed to full-time employers like health care and parental leave; with the employer out of the picture, the “safety net fails,” Sundararajan said.

To restore and refund the safety net, he said, public policy must establish portable benefits for independent contractors, and the United States must prepare for the rapid substitution of workers for AI, in which one in three people will experience a transition in employment.

“We are not prepared as a society for this transition. We weren’t prepared in the late 1970s. … We did not have infrastructure in place that would transfer people with dignity, and we still don’t have those systems in place today.”

-Arun Sundararajan, Robert L. and Dale Atkins Rosen Faculty Fellow, New York University Stern School of Business

He stressed the importance for educational institutions to focus on mid-career transitions rather than pre-career preparations, as well as rebuilding work communities outside of the formal, traditional workplace.

“As I look to the future, and when I think about what are the public policy challenges that we need to solve if we want to … not see the social fabric fragmented even further—it’s building a new social safety net, investing in transition education and thinking about the new place for companies and work reorganization,” Sundararajan said.

After the conclusion of Sundararajan’s lecture, chief of staff Matt Ewalt opened the Q-and-A by asking how disinformation and fake news has impacted businesses’ digital trust.

The short answer, Sundararajan said, is that it hasn’t — however, trust is still lacking.

“If you ask people about their level of trust in digital platforms, Amazon still ranks highest, Apple is OK, but trust in Facebook and Google … is extremely low,” Sundararajan said. “Now, the thing is that that doesn’t sync up with what people are actually doing. We don’t trust Google as a company, but we will share our most intimate secrets with them.”

Sundararajan believes that as digital platforms like Facebook and Google continue to grow in importance, the sites should increase their transparency and conduct “democratic reform” within themselves.

Ewalt then turned to the audience for questions. One attendee asked what the role of the government is in crowd-based capitalism.

Sundararajan said crowd-based capitalism calls for a “redivision of responsibility” between the government and the companies. He said there are aspects of the crowd-based business model that can be handled internally, like the quality of Airbnb accommodations or safety of Uber drivers and passengers, but there are other aspects that should be regulated by the government.

To close the lecture, Ewalt asked: Will the evolution of trust demand a loss of digital privacy?

Currently, Sundararajan said, people are unaware of their lack of privacy online, but he has hope in new technology that can complete safe transactions online with minimal, basic information, protecting both consumer and producer.

“The way that we have been evolving, yes, it has been in correlation with a loss of privacy and the operation of trust systems,” he said. “But if we design them right, that doesn’t have to be true.”

An Enigmatic Evening: CSO to perform concerto for percussion quartet and Elgar’s Enigma Variations

by Justin Kelly on July 30, 2018

For tonight’s concert, percussionist Adam Sliwinski needs 40 twigs, bone-dry, preferably of similar length and thickness. He will have to break all of them multiple times — and he’s been practicing.

“The thing about twigs is that they’re organic material with little joints and different thicknesses, and (composer David Lang) asks us to break them in very precise rhythms,” Sliwinski said. “But every twig doesn’t break with exactly the same amount of pressure in exactly the right place that you want it to, so you have to develop a feel for how thick the twig is in your hand and how quickly it’s going to snap.”

At 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, July 31, in the Amphitheater, Sliwinski and the other three quarters of Sō Percussion will perform Lang’s “man made,” a concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra. The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will also perform Edward Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36, “Enigma.”

The concert is part of this season’s “Into the Music” series; there will be a discussion of the music throughout the program and no intermission.

For the last 19 years, Sō Percussion has been rattling, beating and scraping its way to prominence in the classical music world, and it’s working: the group has been featured on 21 albums, performed in hallowed venues like Disney Hall or the Kennedy Center, and is now the Edward T. Cone Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University — the latter achievement being the most recent, and still a little hard to believe for Sliwinski.

“When I was a student 20 years ago, it was unimaginable that the position a string quartet normally takes up would now be a percussion quartet,” he said. “So we’re delighted that we’ve been a part of things diversifying.”

For most of the history of European classical music, according to Sliwinski, composers have generally used percussion as decoration for orchestral music.

Many cultures around the world, however, have percussion at the center of their musical tradition. Since its inception, Sō Percussion has been asking if that can be true in Western culture as well, Sliwinski said.

That interrogation is a part of a percussion tradition that’s about 80 years old — composer Edgar Varèse wrote the first standalone, all-percussion work in 1931, and percussion ensembles began popping up in the following decades — but that’s a young tradition compared to that of other Western instruments, like the violin.

Starting in the ’30s and ’40s, Sliwinski said, composers like John Cage began experimenting with percussion as the center of attention. They also began employing a broader range of instruments than the standard orchestral items, a trend that has continued to the modern day.

Now, Sliwinski said, percussionists can be called upon to do almost anything, so they must be adept at learning new instruments; in addition to snapping twigs, Sō will be performing on wine bottles, metal pipes, trash cans, and traditional percussion instruments.

Lang’s “man made” will martial the skills of all percussionists involved in tonight’s performance, including the CSO percussion section.

“My solution was to set up a kind of ecology between the soloists and the orchestra, using the orchestral percussionists as translators,” Lang said in a 2014 YouTube video. “An idea begins with the soloists on an invented instrument, the percussionists in the orchestra hear the solo music and translate it into something that can be approximated by more traditional orchestral percussion, the rest of the orchestra hears and understands the orchestral percussion, and they join in.”

After the percussion concerto, the CSO will perform Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, op. 36, “Enigma.” Each of the 14 variations is a musical depiction of one of Elgar’s friends — one of them is even devoted to a dog that Elgar was close with.

The subtitle “Enigma” implies some kind of puzzle nested in the piece, and while Elgar himself never explicitly said what that puzzle was, he did leave hints. CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, along with Elgar’s biographer and most musicologists, said that the piece’s theme — heard in the opening few bars — is the counter-melody to a different, more well-known theme.

Musicologists have taken many a guess at what that theme — the solution to the enigma — might be. Guesses range from “Auld Lang Syne” to “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” but no consensus has been reached.

For Milanov, though, neither the characters behind the variations nor the solution to the enigma are as important as the musical content of the piece.

“My approach would be to just enjoy this incredible piece of music and find inspiration in the music itself,” Milanov said.

Capathia Jenkins returns to Amp stage with showtune favorites “From Brooklyn to Broadway”

by Emma Francois on July 29, 2018

Any time she takes to the stage, Capathia Jenkins hopes to bring her audience on a journey.

The musical escapade she has planned for Chautauquans is a personal one,drawing upon her life and experiences leading up to the career she has now.

This road trip of song, “From Brooklyn to Broadway,” will take place at 8:15 p.m. Monday, July 30, in the Amphitheater.

This is not the first time Jenkins brings soulful classics alive to the Amp stage; she performed last year on July 4 as a soloist alongside Stuart Chafetz and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra during the annual Independence Day Pops Celebration.

“Singing with the symphony and Stuart Chafetz last year for 4th of July in the Amphitheater was a blast,” Jenkins said. “I loved the audience and the general warmth of the people.”

Jenkins is a Broadway regular. Her most recent role was Medda Larkin in Disney’s Newsies. For her Broadway debut, she starred as Harriet Jackson in The Civil War.

She has also frequently accompanied world-renowned orchestras, including the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Cincinnati Pops, National Symphony and ClevelandOrchestra.

Off Broadway, she has been seen in Nora Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore and (mis)Understanding Mammy: The Hattie McDaniel Story.

A Brooklyn native, Jenkins said her set for this evening will showcase her career, both before and after Broadway, and her experiences as a performer.

The setlist includes excerpts from five Broadway roles she has brought to life, as well as some showtune favorites, such as “Over the Rainbow,” “Feeling Good,” “Stormy Monday,” “Home” and “All that Jazz.”

The evening will feature songs familiar to many Chautauquans, which Jenkins said was intentional: she designed the evening around these popular hits, interspersing her life story in between songs.

She hopes hearing these tried-and-true favorites, but in the context of her life, will make the “music fall on (audience’s) ears in a new way.”

According to her website, Jenkins has a long history “grappling” with her two passions: singing and acting. Despite her strong love for both, she has weighed them equally in her career, managing to do both — and love both.

Monday’s performance on July 30, too, will highlight the role of music and theater in Jenkins’ life, as a celebration of two.

“I am so excited to return, this time with my own show,” she said, “and spend an intimate evening with Chautauqua sharing stories about my life from Brooklyn to Broadway.”

Sō Percussion to present new music from Dennehy, Iyer, and Shaw in Chamber Music’s Guest Artist Series

by Justin Kelly on July 29, 2018

Jason Treuting’s musical mentors include the drummer for Steely Dan, a Balinese gamelan master, the timpanist of the Rochester Philharmonic, several renowned marimba players, a pianist and a jazz trumpeter.

That’s the kind of diverse training that Treuting and the other three members of Sō Percussion — Eric Cha-Beach, Adam Sliwinski and Josh Quillen — will bring to Chautauqua Chamber Music’s Guest Artist Series at 4 p.m. Monday, July 30, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall.

As a result of his diverse training, Treuting possess a wide range of skills — and as a percussionist, he said versatility is critical.

“Even in an orchestra, if somebody writes for a police whistle, they’re not giving it to the piccolo player,” said Treuting. “You know they’re going to give it to a percussionist. So we’re kind of always being called upon to do the other thing.”

Sō Percussion are experts in “the other thing.” When Sō performed at Chautauqua in 2016, the group played the expected drums and mallet instruments, but also used a trumpeted conch shell and the Chordstick, a newly invented instrument described on the group’s website as a cross between an electric guitar and a hammer dulcimer.

Founded in 1999, Sō Percussion has gained a reputation as the standard bearer of the percussion quartet genre. As the group’s career has developed, so has percussion music in general: The New York Times credits Sō with setting off an “explosive new enthusiasm for percussion music old and new.”

Treuting thinks the inherent nature of percussion instruments has something to do with the recent surge.

“I feel like percussion is a wonderful vessel for new things because the audience can relate, in a certain way, to the way sound is made. You can look at these objects on stage — whether it’s a drum, vibraphone or flowerpot — and everybody can imagine hitting them to make a sound. It’s very primitive in a wonderful way. But then the way these sounds and notes are put together makes something extraordinary.”

-Jason Treuting, Percussionist, Sō Percussion

The group will be playing several “new things” on today’s concert. “TORQUE,” a mallet quartet by jazz pianist and composer Vijay Iyer, was commissioned by Sō and premiered last month. Iyer’s music often explores the interconnectedness of music and human movement — fitting for Sō, as it has been praised for the choreographic quality of its performances.

Sō will also play Caroline Shaw’s “Taxidermy” and Donnacha Dennehy’s “Broken Unison,” both written specifically for the group. “Broken Unison,” also a mallet quartet, involves “crazy canons all over the place,” according to Sliwinski (a canon occurs when a melody is begun at different times by different players — think “Row Your Boat”).

Dennehy included many canons after attending a rehearsal of “Broken Unison” when the piece was still in draft form, and he saw that the quartet was particularly good at playing them. In a way, the piece is custom-made for the group’s specific strengths. “Taxidermy,” written for the group in 2012, makes use of mallet instruments, flower pots and spoken word. Towards the end of the piece, according to the composer, the group repeats the phrase “the detail of the pattern is movement,” which comes from T.S. Eliot’s “Burnt Norton.” Shaw said she loves trying — and failing — to imagine that concept, which she describes as “a kind of whimsical existentialist mantra.”

In Sō Percussion’s mission statement, the group says that it aims to create and present “new collaborative works to adventurous and curious audiences.” The group is certainly doing its half: two of the works mentioned were premiered this year, and all were written in the past 10 years.

Simran Singh talks a need for more Sikhism representation in interfaith dialogue

by Jamie Landers on July 29, 2018

Simran Singh, assistant professor of religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, lectures on Sikhism as part of the Interfaith Friday series Friday, July 27, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. RILEY ROBINSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Simran Singh, assistant professor of religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, lectures on Sikhism as part of the Interfaith Friday series Friday, July 27, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. RILEY ROBINSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Simran Singh, assistant professor of religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, lectures on Sikhism as part of the Interfaith Friday series Friday, July 27, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. RILEY ROBINSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Simran Singh, assistant professor of religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, lectures on Sikhism as part of the Interfaith Friday series Friday, July 27, 2018 in the Hall of Philosophy. RILEY ROBINSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

In the fifth edition, July 27, of the Interfaith Friday Series, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, vice president of religion, moderated a number of questions with interfaith advocate Simran Jeet Singh, who represented Sikhism.

Singh is an assistant professor of religion at Trinity University and senior religion fellow for the Sikh Coalition, a civil rights organization based in New York City. This year, Singh is serving as the Henry R. Luce Fellow for Religion in International Affairs at NYU’s Center for Religion and Media. Simran is also on the board of the Religion News Association, a fellow for the Truman National Security Project and a term member for the Council on Foreign Relations. Simran has received various accolades and awards for his teaching and social justice work. Most recently, he received the Walter Wink Scholar-Activist Award from Auburn Seminary, the Presidential Excellence Award for Teaching from Columbia University, Educator of the Year from the Dialogue Institute of the Southwest and the Community Pillar Award from the Northside Education Foundation.

What follows is an abridged version of Singh’s conversation. Singh and Robinson’s remarks have been condensed for clarity.

From where you sit in your tradition, why should we be moving in an interfaith direction either here at Chautauqua or in the world?

Singh: For communities like mine that are so often invisible, marginalized or disempowered, interfaith can serve as a vehicle for lifting up these communities. I have been involved in interfaith work since elementary school; we were the only (Sikh) kids in San Antonio, and my parents would have us perform, speak and represent interfaith programs. For me, I have found that at that time, no one thought about Sikhs. No one in Texas was thinking about interfaith any more broadly than Jewish, Christian and Islam — if they could find a Muslim. That is what interfaith looked like to us then. Now, 30 years later, (there is an) increasing inclusion of minority communities, the affirmation that we belong, we matter. Even sitting on this stage with you, I could not imagine doing something like this when I was kid, and I feel like myself and members of my community have fought tooth and nail just to be seen. I know this is happening more and more on a national level, but it is not happening at a lower level. People aren’t reaching out and making the effort to do that.

This interfaith (dialogue) historically has been and continues to be a power play. There are certain people who get seats at the table, and there are certain people who don’t. In a sense, it is not different than how power works in any other context, whether we are talking politically, in local communities or in your own household. There are people who have power, who can open up spaces for people who don’t have power and create equity. We can produce equal footings for other people in our community. For me, that is what I really appreciate about interfaith.

When you come to the metaphorical interfaith table, what gifts do you bring as a Sikh to that table?

Singh: So one of the things I am working on and writing on is this idea called the “technologies of the self.” It is something that I find to be incredibly powerful in a world where it seems to me that people are becoming disillusioned with discipline and practice. So many young people that I encounter in my classrooms and outside of them say, “I am spiritual, but not religious.” And I am all for that, but what I often interpret from that as we talk further is that they are interested in this concept of spirituality and meditation and yoga, but don’t want to commit to any sort of daily ritual because they find that to be meaningless. In many ways, I completely empathize with them. I felt that way growing up. As my daily discipline as a Sikh, we are supposed to do prayer five times a day, and as a teenager, I found it ridiculous that I was saying the same thing five times a day. (When) I came across Saba Mahmood’s book, Politics of Piety, it completely changed how I understood the importance of the practice of discipline, and that is what gave me the insight into what is different about the Sikh community that we are seeing right now: why is it that in every single incident that I have encountered and studied, Sikhs respond with their values? It’s always love, it’s always optimism, it’s always justice. The only answer I have is this idea of daily sustained discipline. Every single day, do the right thing, so when push comes to shove, you do the right thing. That is something I have seen from the Sikh community, and it’s the most powerful lesson that I have taken in the last 10 to 15 years.

What gifts do other religions bring to the table that you might benefit from?

Singh: The past few years I have been teaching Islamic studies at Trinity University in San Antonio. One of things I have really appreciated from studying Islam has been this concept of Ahl al-Kitāb, the idea that there are “people of the book” and that they share a fraternity of Jews, Christians and Muslims. The idea of “book” has transformed over time, but they have a core identity that stays together. What I love about that is that it gives us a language for this idea of familyhood. I would love for us, Sikhs especially, to think about what it would mean to develop language that extended beyond our identity. This idea of Ahl al-Kitāb allows us to do that, to imagine what a community looks like and what they have in common in a way that is actually tangible. We can identify based on that single term that there is a set of core values, of a shared history, of shared texts, of shared ritual and of shared culture. We have language that does that for us in a broader way. We can say “humanity,” we can say “familyhood,” but those terms, when we use them to talk about one another, have become so watered down that it doesn’t really do any work for us. So what does it mean to develop language that we can institutionalize in a way that really means “I have a connection with you”? I don’t know what the answer to that is, but I look into that concept and say, “I want some of that.”

Do you have any sacred texts or holy teachings that are telling you that yours is the one true religion?

Singh: In our tradition, we have a scriptural text that was compiled by our gurus themselves. It is all music, it’s all written to song and it is all poetry. It is not just their own writings; they included the writings and songs of other traditions. It is a sort of devotional and mystical literature and music that essentially communicates two messages: What it’s like to experience that connectedness with love, and how does one get to experience it? There is not much of anything else. What we find in our tradition and our theological belief is that one can reach this goal of love from any religious path. It is this true, essential idea of pluralism to the point that we have other religious figures in our own Scriptures, and we have no problem with that because our idea is it doesn’t matter what your background is, as long as you live a life of love. We don’t care too much about afterlife, we don’t have a concept of missionizing or conversion, and it is because we have this core, deeply held belief that one should be devoted, and one should be loving, and it doesn’t matter where they are coming from. So there is not anything to be interpreted as “You have to be a Sikh in order to be a good person” because we explicitly believe the opposite.

Do you have extremist practitioners of Sikhism?

Singh: Just like any religious tradition, we have extremists, and just like any other religious tradition, we have them of all stripes. I think the violent extremism is boring, and so I don’t want to touch on that because that is what we always talk about as a society. What I think is super interesting, what I am constantly trying to wrap my head around, is the type of extremism that I find reads religion in such a way that it flips the core idea on its head, and then you end up with something that seems exactly opposite of what was intended. For example, I have talked about how oneness is the ultimate principle and so much of the Scripture talks about “How do we break down these divisions and dichotomies we have produced in our heads, not just about people we encounter, but how we organize our understanding of the world?” The most common in the context of religion is what’s pure and what’s polluted. In the Sikh tradition, a lot of work is done by our gurus institutionally, scripturally around destroying these ideas of divisions, destroying the idea that there is something better than something else and the constant reminder that God is in everything. But still, there are Sikhs who end up living in such a way that they have very strong beliefs that there are only certain things that are divine and only certain things that are profane. That strikes me as fascinating because the entire logic of the Sikh theological system relies on this core principle of divine presence in everything. To then say this particular site is holy because God lives here, or this particular day is the most holy because this is divinely sanctioned, or this material substance is something we should eat, or that we should touch because God is here or God is not there — that is extremism. They take those ideas to their edges, and it completely changes the way we understand what Sikhism is about.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan to discuss changing nature of work

by Matthew Steinberg on July 29, 2018

Tim Ryan, U.S. representative of Ohio’s 13th Congressional District, will deliver a special lecture at 3:30 p.m. Monday, July 30, in the Hall of Philosophy as part of Chautauqua Institution’s Week Six programming, “The Changing Nature of Work.”

Ryan was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 as the youngest Democrat in Congress at 29 years old. He is currently serving his eighth term and is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, co-chairman of the Military Mental Health Caucus and Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus. He supports a number of initiatives and organizations to invest in the next generation of American manufacturing jobs.

“I think Congressman Ryan is uniquely positioned to speak on the politics of work,” said Matt Ewalt, Institution chief of staff, “and the way in which politics previews the way in which work is changing and will change in a number of ways.”

In a report titled “Putting America Back to Work,” Ryan wrote that America’s “economy is continually changing. As industries and workers adapt to globalization, automation, technological advancements, and growing wage inequality — the United States must speed up to keep up.”

Ryan wrote that rise of automation, robots, and artificial intelligence could benefit the economy and “create new opportunities for our society that few can imagine,” but “we cannot ignore the reality that these advancements combined with globalization have already contributed to job loss and economic instability for many American workers, especially those who are low-paid, under-skilled, or less-educated.” His report included recommendations for research, job development, policy changes and strategic investments.

Ewalt said the politics of work have consequences on everyone in the country, from small to large households.

“For us, (Ryan) was a critical complement to what we’re doing through the morning platform,” Ewalt said. “When you look at his voice within the (Democratic) Party on a number of issues, this has been one that has really risen to the top for him and in terms of the national discourse.”

On his website, Ryan asks questions like “What is the future of the workplace? How will we deal with the rise of automation? How can we ensure that a rapidly changing economy leaves no one behind?” One of his main concerns throughout his years in Congress has been the working-class American in places like his home district, which includes blue-collar manufacturing towns like Akron, Kent and Warren, Ohio.

“The question is how do you plug in communities, like Youngstown, Ohio, who have been left behind and I think gave rise to the Donald Trump presidency,” Ryan said in a June interview with Bloomberg. “Because while globalization and automozation were happening, these communities (like) Flint, Michigan, Gerry, Indiana (and others) along the Great Lakes and down in the south were left behind.”

Ryan began his career as a politician in 1995 when he became a congressional aide to former U.S. Rep. Jim Traficant and then served as an intern for the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office. As a congressman, he not only advocates for working-class Americans, but also works to make college more affordable and combat the heroin epidemic.

“Congressman Ryan has been very vocal in challenging fellow Democrats, particularly after the election, in how they engage or don’t engage working-

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” to screen in the Amphitheater, featuring the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra performing live score.

by Justin Kelly on July 28, 2018

Harry Potter’s birthday is three days from Saturday, July 28, and that means Hogwarts will soon be back in session — but this time, it’s the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra that will guide Chautauquans through the magical school year.

At 8:15 p.m. Saturday, July 28, in the Amphitheater, the CSO will present “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Concert,” a screening of the film with the orchestra performing the musical score live.

There is no explicit mention of a music class at Hogwarts in any of the books or movies, but music is an integral part of the film series. This weekend, Chautauquans will hear the second film’s score in its full orchestral glory.

In modern times, watching a film with live music is considered a novelty, but it’s actually a return to the way movies were originally experienced. In the early days of film, live music was the only means available to provide audio at a theater.

Conductor John Beal, who will lead the CSO in Saturday’s performance, developed his original passion for music at the feet of renowned silent movie organist and family friend Gaylord Carter. Decades later, Beal is carrying on the tradition of live movie music as a regular conductor for films with live orchestra.

If the music is recorded, it can easily be taken for granted or tuned out, but a performance emphasizes the role of the score, according to Beal.

“By playing the score live, you’re breathing new life into it,” he said. “The audience really gets a sense of how the music is integrated into the film.”

The score on Saturday, July 28, isn’t just simple accompaniment music.

According to Beal, it packs some serious challenges for the orchestra. The flying car scene is a dizzying flurry at high speed, and “The Spiders” requires lots of focus and power.

The legendary John Williams composed the score that will be heard Saturday. Few film score composers rival his level of fame and the name recognition — he wrote the music for blockbusters like “Jaws,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and “Star Wars.”

Williams’ music is so good, Beal said, because it functions well on multiple levels. On a surface level, Williams is a master of writing fitting and memorable themes. But upon closer inspection, Beal said, Williams’ scores are as complex and well-crafted as any other.

It’s been somewhat of a battle to get the classical music community to recognize that, however. According to Beal, classical music critics treated film scores as second-rate music as recently as 20 years ago.

Now, Beal said that stigma is mostly gone. Film scores from composers like Williams, Hans Zimmer and others are played in concert halls across the country, with and without their accompanying films.

The CSO is no exception — this concert is the second in an eight-part series that will cover all of the Harry Potter movies over the coming seasons.

Higher Heights co-founder Glynda Carr to give final Chautauqua Women’s Club Lecture about women in electoral politics

by Deborah Trefts on July 28, 2018

At all levels of government in 2018, women have been running in unprecedented numbers for elected office — nearly 600 for Congress and governorships alone.

At 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 28, in CARR the Hall of Philosophy, political strategist and advocate Glynda C. Carr will present the final Barbara Vackar Lecture for the Chautauqua Women’s Club, “When Women Lead: From Seneca Falls to Washington, D.C.” She will talk about “many women (who) have contributed to the diverse pattern of our democracy,” including U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, who was born in Brooklyn and lived in the Buffalo area after she left Congress.

In 2015, Chautauqua Foundation Board of Directors Chair Cathy Bonner established the annual Barbara Vackar Lecture as part of the CWC’s Contemporary Issues Forum.

Carr is co-founder of Higher Heights for America, a national organization focused on strengthening the civic participation of black women in grassroots advocacy campaigns and the electoral process. Higher Heights seeks to create an environment in which more black women and other candidates committed to advancing progressive policies that improve the well-being of black women can successfully run for public office.

“Women have played a major role in building our democracy, yet are underrepresented in elected office,” Carr said. “In 2018, we have a record number of women and women of color running for public office, stepping off the sidelines ready to serve and lead.”

However, political advocacy and organizing were not on Carr’s mind when she was growing up in the Hartford, Connecticut, area. She said that her father is fourth-generation Jamaican and her mother is African-American. Ethnic culture was important to both of her parents, and they were involved in local cultural organizations.

“As a little girl, I thought I was going to work in fashion, but I came from a musical family,” Carr said.

She was the youngest of three, and her brother was a full-time musician. She spent her Saturday at Jackie McLean’s Artists Collective, and she picked up the flute in fourth grade.

Jackie McLean — renowned alto saxophonist, composer, community activist and University of Hartford faculty member — and his wife, Dollie, co-founded the nationally recognized multidisciplinary Artists Collective in 1970 to preserve and perpetuate the artistic and cultural contributions of the African diaspora.

“My senior year, I thought I was off to New York to work in fashion,” Carr said. “Then I got a letter from the University of Hartford, where Jackie McLean was chair of the music program.”

McLean had established the university’s African-American music department, as well as its jazz studies degree program. Carr said she applied and was accepted with a scholarship. Midway through college, however, she decided she didn’t want to be a musician, so she dual-majored in jazz studies and arts management.

While her family was deeply rooted in music and culture, Carr said they were also committed to public service.

“When I turned 18, my mother drove me to city hall to register to vote,” Carr said.

At the University of Hartford, she was engaged in student activism groups, including as vice president of Brothers and Sisters United. BSU is the university’s oldest recognized student organization, according to the university’s website. In addition to their involvement in campus life and collaboration with other campus organizations, BSU’s members perform community service projects throughout the greater Hartford community.

Carr was in college when the verdict was announced for the Rodney King case. Four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted on charges of using excessive force while beating King when they arrested him on March 3, 1991. A videotape of this beating was provided to a local TV station. The acquittals sparked the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the prosecution of these officers in a separate federal civil rights case. Carr said she became involved in black advocacy thereafter.

“Like any small town girl,” Carr said, she wanted to move to a bigger city. So upon graduation, she worked in Philadelphia for three years for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. As senior manager of social marketing and volunteer recruitment, her job was to travel across the country recruiting more big brothers and big sisters of color.

As a musician, Carr said she always wanted to move to New York. Her wish came true when she was hired as the director of national programs for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the largest organization in the United States exclusively representing the publicly supported historically black colleges and universities (which enroll more than 80 percent of all students attending such schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education) and predominantly black institutions.

In 2002, when Kevin Parker ran for the New York State Senate — seeking to represent District 21 in Brooklyn, where Carr lived — she said she was inspired by him. She began volunteering for his campaign and ended up as a “super volunteer.”

Carr said that after Parker won the race, “he approached me to be chief of staff because of my background in community organizing.” She accepted. Until 2008, Carr traveled on Parker’s behalf, organized his local initiatives, shaped policy concerning youth development and economic development, and served as the manager for two of his successful re-election campaigns. Currently, Parker is the legislature’s Democratic Conference Whip.

“Then I got a call from a colleague about a new organization, Education Voters of New York,” Carr said. “That’s where I met Beth Sullivan,” the current president of the CWC. “I was her New York state executive director.”

Sullivan had founded the nonprofit Education Voices of America in 2006 to advocate for equitable rather than equal educational funding. Because education-related decisions are largely made and implemented at the state level, Sullivan launched organizations in five states, including New York.

Carr spoke about Education Voters of New York in an interview for GlobalPolicy TV in 2011.

“(It) is an advocacy organization that looks at public school reform from a political perspective,” she said. It’s about development of the right policies so that every child, particularly children from low-income (families) and communities of color, have access to a quality education. It’s about … engaging communities and mobilizing around that issue, but more importantly, supporting and electing pro-education candidates to our state offices around the United States.”

For nearly three years — until after the 2010 election when the political environment changed in Congress and across the country — Carr worked for Education Voters of New York. As the organization shifted its focus, she thought hard about what she wanted to do.

In 2011, Carr established and became a principal at Liberty Street Capital, a New York-based public affairs, community relations and political strategy consulting firm.

“I’ve always had a ‘kitchen cabinet’ — informal advisors, mentors, and sponsors like (President) Andrew Jackson had,” Carr said. “So I spent … time with women, having conversations with my kitchen cabinet and friends.”

Carr said there was a particularly productive conversation with political fundraiser and event planner Kimberly Peeler-Allen, then principal of Peeler-Allen Consulting.

“I was talking to Kimberly about opportunities (in 2011) — my background is music and civic engagement,” Carr said. “I had a lot to say about how I felt as an African-American. We started talking about the lack of diversity and what we wanted to do. What could a political organization for black women look like? We came up with the name that day. I spent two years researching.”

Together, Carr and Peeler-Allen founded Higher Heights for America in 2011. They also established a sister organization, Higher Heights Leadership Fund. Carr said that by 2014, Higher Heights was organizing, recruiting advisors, getting endorsements and doing major programming full-time.

As part of her political outreach, Carr is a speaker, spokesperson, trainer and writer. Her writing has been published in publications such as The Huffington Post, feminist.com, TheBrockReport.net, WalkersLegacy. com, TheRoot.com, BET.com, ebony.com and NBCBLK.com. She has appeared on Fox News Live, MSNBC and several other media outlets.

Rev. Skye Jethani to preach from intersection of culture, faith as Week Six chaplain

by Mary Lee Talbot on July 28, 2018

The Rev. Skye Jethani loves to explore the intersection of faith and culture and works to help people understand the questions that are raised in that intersection.

Just look at some of the titles of his articles for The Huffington Post: “An Evangelical Case for Gay Wedding Cakes,” “Evangelicals Are Too Political and Other Myths,” “Is This The End Of ‘Evangelicalism’?,” Why Evangelicals Must Defend Muslims,” “Christians Are Fighting The Wrong ‘War On Christmas’ ” and “How Interfaith Cooperation Honors God: An Evangelical’s Perspective.”

Jethani will be the chaplain for Week Six at Chautauqua. He will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning worship service on July 29 in the Amphitheater. His sermon title is “But Now I See.” He will share his faith journey at the 5 p.m. Sunday, July 29, Vespers in the Hall of Philosophy.

He will preach at the 9:15 a.m. morning worship services from July 30 to Aug. 3 in the Amp. His sermon titles include “Work is a Gift,” “Healing the Sacred/Secular Divide,” “Planting Roses as the World Burns,” “The Right Way to Play God” and “God Does Not Need You.”

Jethani is an author, speaker, consultant and ordained pastor. He is the co-host of the weekly “Phil Vischer Podcast,” now called “The Holy Post,” with Vischer, who is the creator of “VeggieTales.”

Since 2004, Jethani has occupied numerous roles at Christianity Today, a leading evangelical publication. He served as both the managing and senior editor of Leadership Journal, as the director of mission advancement for Christianity Today and as senior producer of This Is Our City, a multiyear, multi-city project telling the stories of Christians working for the common good of their communities.

He has consulted for the Lausanne Movement, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and Interfaith Youth Core, and has written for numerous publications, including The Washington Post, and is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post.

Prior to his work at Christianity Today, Jethani served for six years in full-time pastoral ministry as an assistant teaching pastor at Wellspring Alliance Church (formerly Blanchard Alliance Church) in Wheaton, Illinois. He is a featured preacher on Preaching Today, a website sponsored by Christianity Today for pastors and preachers.

As a speaker in recent years, Jethani has led workshops on topics that include faith and consumerism, interfaith cooperation, global mission, church trends, Christianity and politics, biblical justice, faith and vocation and common good Christianity.

Author of numerous books, Jethani writes for “With God Daily Devotional,” a subscription-based daily email designed to help a smartphone generation begin the day with God.

Ordained in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a Protestant denomination established in 1887, he earned a master’s of divinity degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He received his undergraduate degree from Miami University in Ohio, concentrating in history and comparative religion with a special focus on Islam, as well as Buddhism, Judaism and early Christianity.

Week Six Column from the President

by Michael E. Hill on July 27, 2018

Welcome to Week Six of our 145th Assembly. It’s hard to believe that this week marks the two-thirds point in our season. We have experienced so much in the first five weeks, and I’m excited about the timely topic we will probe this coming week, as we look at “The Changing Nature of Work.”

The state of work in America exists in contradictions. Wealth creation is up, but the per-capita GDP is stagnating. Working-class wages have been flat for decades, but the “gig economy” is booming. This week, we study the nature of work in the United States, examining the future of automation, the changing role of labor unions, the identity politics of the working classes and the disappearing line in work-life balance. We look across generations and social classes, seeking to find who we are in a culture that ties identity to the jobs we hold, and reclaiming and honoring the dignity of work. We are so grateful to our friends at Grant Thornton, and to Chautauqua trustee Jim Brady, who serves as Grant Thornton’s COO, for their sponsorship of this week.

One of the newest advances at Chautauqua has come straight out of this week. As I was seeking the counsel of our NOW Gen group, those Chautauquans 40 and under, one of the things they told me is that many of them are able to work remotely. Many of their employers see the benefit of workplace flexibility, understanding that not all employees need to be in the same physical space to be effective. From that advice, we were so excited to inaugurate the Dr. Robert H. Hesse Welcome and Business Center in our Main Gate complex. Video conferencing rooms and co-working spaces bring this week’s topic to reality in service to those who might come to Chautauqua but cannot completely unplug from work. I hope you’ll visit it and that the concepts presented in this new space, which honors the 14th president of Chautauqua, spur your own ideas for conversation this week.

In our companion Interfaith Lecture Series, we explore the closely knit topic of “A Spirituality of Work.” Judaism and Christianity, as well as other faith traditions, espouse various perspectives regarding the nature of work. What are the practices and disciplines within religions which foster an understanding of work as inherently spiritual? Does the American spirit of rugged individualism help or hurt in understanding our relationship to work? Why do Americans seem to overly identify with their jobs? Why does “What do you do?” almost immediately follow asking someone their name? This is particularly poignant for me as someone who spends part of his year in Washington, D.C., where “What do you do?” actually comes before asking your name. Why do people (and especially men) often experience a spiritual crisis upon retirement and the ending of “work” as a focus of their lives? Does economic inequality or wealth associated with work impact us spiritually? This week will strive to help us uncover the spiritual nature of our working lives.

Many have commented this season that our themes seem to be extremely timely. I think this week is no exception, and I’m looking forward to the dialogue that comes from the varied perspectives presented this week.

There are a few other items I hope to lift up for you. One of the highlights of my inaugural year last year was our first performance by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra of the “Harry Potter” score, with the film showing on a giant screen above the stage. For those who did not get to see that, I’d advise arriving early for part two Saturday night. It may have been the most packed event we had last year and is fun for the whole family. It’s also a real joy to watch young people discover that the music in “Harry Potter” actually comes from this thing called “an orchestra.”

Just this week, we announced the appointment of a new artistic director for the Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institution (VACI). Don Kimes has faithfully built and served this program for more than 30 years. We get a chance to publicly honor Don this week, which only seems fitting as we announce that Sharon Louden will serve as the new artistic director and will also hold the title of Sydelle Sonkin and Herb Siegel Chair for the Visual Arts. It was so special to honor Sydelle and Herb at an event last weekend for providing the first endowed chair for any of the leaders of our major arts programs. If you see them, please give them your thanks.

An exciting week awaits us at Chautauqua — whether you’re continuing your journey or this is your first time with us on the grounds this season. Thank you for serving as the animating force that makes all that we do possible.

Corey D. B. Walker examines the founding and future of America’s possibilities

by Jamie Landers on July 27, 2018

Corey D. B. Walker discusses the ethics of dissent in his lecture “Is America Possible?: An Ethics of Dissent in an Empire of Dissent” on Thursday, July 26, 2018, in the Hall of Philosophy. ABIGAIL DOLLINS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Before this week, Corey D. B. Walker considered the Institution a “school of democracy.” However, after choosing to wrestle with the ethics of dissent, he believes Chautauqua is changing its course to become a school of radical democracy, providing a space to explore the possibility of America at its best.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, July 26, in the Hall of Philosophy, Walker, vice president and dean of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology of Virginia Union University, presented his lecture, “Is America Possible? An Ethics of Dissent in an Empire of Dissent,” as the last of Week Five’s theme, “The Ethics of Dissent.”

“The practices of the conversations that occur in this space and the leveraging of the convening power of this space remind us that the ethics of dissent are not so much ethical principles that we can divine from some space outside of the human experience, but instead they operate within the very practices of our everyday lives,” Walker said.

Walker said in order to start discussing dissent in America, Chautauquans need to understand that America is still a work in progress.

“When we spend our ideas and our time on this question, ‘Is America possible?’ what I want for us to do is not begin at a finished moment, not to think (of) America as a political project that has been completed and the only thing we need to do is to add some finishing touches on this project,” Walker said. “Instead, I want us to look foundationally to begin to really think, ‘How do we understand this project that we call America?’”

But Walker was not the first to question America’s boundless possibilities. He was inspired by Vincent Harding, an African-American scholar and historian, who wrote an essay on the topic in his book Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement.

“Harding invites us to engage this question ‘Is America possible?’ by opening up and thinking anew how we should live this experiment with democracy,” Walker said. “Harding wanted us to understand (that) by raising the question, we know that the answer is not final.”

Walker said Harding’s work helped him to understand the main challenge of discussing dissent: breaking the status quo.

“Dissent comes and dissent is known, not so much by the nature of what is. Dissent is understood as the articulation of what can be,” Walker said.

“In many ways, when we focus on dissent as that which is, we focus on the normative criteria that then defines dissent. But what I want us to do is to raise the level of dissent because dissent means that we have to interrogate the very foundations of what we think of as the norm.”

-Corey D.B. Walker, Vice president, dean, Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University

Walker said the more he talks about the challenges surrounding the ethics of dissent, the more he is reminded of how complicated it is because it does not “follow an either/or mindset.”

“We can’t frame dissent, let alone an ethics of dissent, along a logic of ‘You are either Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, progressive or reactionary,’ ” he said. “If you want to contain me, if you want to then bog me down by the categories of existence, then you want to fit me within that category or framework, but that does not give us the very idea and complexity of what it means to live in our world today.”

Because dissent can’t follow an either/or logic or framework, the question of “Is America possible?” also categorically refuses an either/or response.

“To respond effectively to that question, we understand that it can’t be resolved by fear, it can’t be resolved by political rhetoric, it can’t be resolved by a singular movement, nor can it be resolved by a protest in one moment, in one space and in one time,” he said. “It refuses any simplistic thinking, or even speaking, of an ethics of dissent.”

Walker said America was founded on the expression of possibilities and the concept that America “is always a negotiation.”

In 1821, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams exchanged letters debating the idea of what constitutes a nation where there are groups of people excluded from the phrase “We the people,” Walker said.

“For Jefferson, the real question for him was a question that afflicted the states: ‘How do we deal with this unfortunate population?’” Walker said. “ ‘Are our slaves to be presented with freedom and a dagger?’ ”

Adams responded to Jefferson’s question by stating that he saw slavery as a “black cloud hanging over America.”

“You see, for Jefferson and for Adams, they understood that something that was called ‘America’ was not even a possibility just yet,” Walker said, “because there is something there that is challenging and constraining the very idea of America to express itself fully and definitely.”

In the Founding Fathers’ questioning of America’s inclusivity, they created the need for an “ethics of community,” a need Walker believes was best articulated by Martin Luther King Jr. Walker said King articulated an ethics of dissent from the moment he responded to his call to ministry in 1944.

“King began to articulate a modality of existence that brought into being new possibilities of human being and belonging,” Walker said.

In addition to belonging, Walker said King practiced surmounting freedom in a way that provided Americans with an exemplary practice of an ethics of dissent.

“It is a sermonic freedom that enables King to articulate an ethics of dissent that is not something of the same; it is an ethics that is framed from the architecture of trying to respond to the question, ‘Is America possible?’ by articulating a new possibility that exceeds America,” Walker said.

Walker believes King utilized the space of the sermon to challenge not only the sovereignty of the nation, but to articulate a new “mode of being human in the world” through his faith.

“In many ways, we can’t hear King,” Walker said. “We can’t understand his sermon because King was a follower, not of Christianity, but a religion of that first-century Palestinian Jew named Jesus. King’s sermonic freedom was framed on the architecture of a cross.”

Walker said King had a natural desire to serve humanity that enabled him to confront not only the question of America’s possibility, but also of religion’s role in its possibility.

“He fused (possibility) with a language of morality that questioned, ‘What does our religion say to them?’ ” Walker said. “They who are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. It was a dissent framed not only by the architecture of what is politically possible, but it was a dissent of what is spiritually unimaginable.”

According to Walker, King’s intertwining of religion and American possibility sparked a new question: Are people going to identify with the crucified or the crossmakers? The answer, Walker said, defines why an ethics of dissent has no simple solution, but is still one worth working on.

“In many ways, these cross-shaped words of Jesus reminds us that an ethics of dissent is not something that is easy, it is not something that is simplistic and it is not something that will enable us to continue with the comfort of our lives,” he said. “It is the only way in which we can articulate life eternal and the only way that we can have life worth living.”

Gin Blossoms to celebrate 25th anniversary tour at Chautauqua with jangle pop sound and popular favorites

by Julie Ciotola on July 26, 2018

In 1987, the Gin Blossoms first came together in Tempe, Arizona, to produce jangle pop music, a style of rock that rose to prominence in the 1980s. By 1989, the band was invited to perform at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Texas, and just three years later, it released its breakthrough album New Miserable Experience.

“We were young, longtime musicians playing in a college town, and so we just sort of happened into each other,” said Jessie Valenzuela, the band’s lead guitarist.

The Gin Blossoms are bringing alternative rock sound to Chautauqua in celebration of the 25th anniversary of its multiplatinum album.

The Gin Blossoms will perform 8:15 p.m. Friday, July 27, in the Amphitheater. The band, known for songs like “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You,” is currently touring across the nation.

“I think it’s a nice thing to be around 25 years in a crazy business like music,” Valenzuela said. “It’s a real success.”

In addition to celebrating its breakthrough album, in June 2018 the band released Mixed Reality, which marks its sixth studio album.

“The record has actually been done for a year and half but was recently released,” Valenzuela said. “But when you have a life in music, you just don’t really think about it in those terms; it’s just day to day. For me, I’ve been a professional musician since I was 15 years old, so this is my whole life. It’s never boring, usually it’s nice, but there are moments of catastrophe and moments of sheer happiness.”

Having been together for decades, the Gin Blossoms have experienced the dynamic nature of music. The group took a short break in the early 2000s, which Valenzuela said he considers it a positive recess.

“We didn’t make music together for about 18 months; it wasn’t very long,” he said. “It was more of a, ‘Hey, I’m going to take a long vacation. I’ll see you later.’ Taking a break is always nice. If you’ve got some bread and you can go travel and have some fun — why not? I’m a proponent of breaks.”

Upon reuniting, the members quickly clicked and released Major Lodge Victory in 2006, which received significant recognition when it appeared on Billboard’s Top 10 Independent Albums. In 2010, the single “Miss Disarray” was released, a song that remains one of the most requested hits in the band’s live set.

Though the Gin Blossoms has sold over 10 million records and was recently inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame, the band remains focused amid success. Described on its website as “rock ’n’ roll lifers,” the member’s main focus is simple: keep making music.

“We’re entertaining and we have chops,” said Robin Wilson, the band’s lead singer, on the Gin Blossoms website. “But it really comes down to the songs. The reason we’re still here is that we have good songs. When young musicians ask me for advice, what’s the best thing to do to further my career, I always say, ‘Write good songs.’ It always comes down to that.”

Chautauqua Opera Company to present fresh version of ‘Candide’

by Georgia Davis on July 26, 2018

Chautauqua Opera Company performs Leonard Bernstein’s Candide Wednesday, July 25, 2018, in Norton Hall. BRIAN HAYES/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

When John Riesen heard he would be playing the title character in Candide for the 2018 season for Chautauqua Opera Company, he immediately wanted to call Rebekah Howell.

“I was told that my friend Rebekah would be cast as Cunegonde,” said Riesen, a Young Artist. “I was itching at the bit to call her, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Instead, he sent her a text: “Are you playing Cunegonde?”

As soon as he asked, Howell knew she would be performing alongside her friend in Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, and she screamed with excitement.

Howell and Riesen’s friendship is similar to Candide and Cunegonde’s relationship: Riesen and Howell were first Chautauqua Opera Young Artists in 2014, they went their separate ways and now are back at Chautauqua playing an on-stage couple.

The story of Candide is about lovers who get separated, and despite the hardships they go through, find a way to be together.

“It just makes the experience wonderful because sometimes you do things like this and you don’t know anybody, and the chemistry is not that great,” Riesen said.

“And sometimes you’re real old buds, and you’re just having a real good time,” Howell said.

Chautauqua Opera will present the comedic opera Candide at 4 p.m. Friday, July 27, in Norton Hall. The production is one in more than a thousand performances taking place throughout the world to celebrate the centenary of Bernstein’s birth.

The script for Candide has undergone transformations over the years. The work first premiered on Broadway as a musical in December 1956. Its run lasted two months, with a total of 73 performances. Since then, people have tried to rewrite the script to match Bernstein’s musical talent.

Stage director Jay Lesenger, former director of Chautauqua Opera, stayed away from the piece for a while because of its “problematic” script.

Additionally, Candide is based on the novel by Voltaire, who uses literary humor instead of situational. That can be hard to translate into a staged version, Lesenger said.

“I always thought that the more literal these different versions tried to be to Voltaire, in some ways, the farther it got away from Bernstein’s music,” Lesenger said. “Bernstein took Voltaire as a launching pad to really fill this piece with really great musical theater choices.”

The original script was written by Lillian Hellman, a playwright known for dramas. Hellman refused to let Harold Prince use her script when he tried to revive Candide in the ’70s. Prince reworked the script and made it more serious but didn’t solve the issues.

There was only one version Lesenger thought fixed the problems: a semi-staged version by Lonny Price, performed by the New York Philharmonic in 2004 featuring Kristin Chenoweth and Patti LuPone. Lesenger, with permission from the Bernstein estate, staged this version for the first time at Palm Beach Opera in February.

“I saw the video of that (2004 performance) in my research, and I went, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great. This is funny,’” Lesenger said. “It moves, and it’s everything I think Candide should be. It matches the music.”

This version features the same slew of characters. Returning guest artists Robert Orth and Leann Sandel-Pantaleo will portray Pangloss/Voltaire and The Old Lady, respectively. Orth has worked with other directors on Candide before, one of which called it a “magnificent mess,” he said.

“It’s a huge mess. Everybody tries to fix it, and everybody thinks they’ve fixed it, and it’s OK,” Orth said. “The point is the music is glorious, the story is timeless, and so we just do a different version.”

Chautauqua Opera’s version goes back to its musical theater roots and features some choreographed dance scenes.

The characters in Candide travel all around the world, and dance choreographer Mara Newbery Greer said there are many styles of dance in this production. There is a Spanish-inspired section, a Paris waltz and even some cheerleading-like moves.

Greer worked with Lesenger on Candide in February, and this is her second time choreographing the opera.

“(Bernstein’s) musicianship is stunning. There is a reason his stuff has stood the tests of time and why it has been around as long as it has,” Greer said. “Before I even hear a lyric, his music can inform a story and tell you how to feel. You know where we’re at emotionally just with the music.”

When Lesenger premiered this version at Palm Beach Opera, Bernstein’s daughter Nina Bernstein Simmons, watched the performance. Lesenger said she loved it, and he hopes to make this version available to other companies to use.

“I’ve seen it in the opera house. The score is always fabulous, and the audience always loves the music, but it just got longer and longer, frankly,” Lesenger said. “That’s why I like this version because it gets back more to the musical theater roots and away from the ‘opera house’ version. I think that’s why it works so well.”

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