CODA Symposium Evaluation

The CODA New Directions conference was hosted at Rhodes last Thursday and it was a very successful day. The CODA scholars gathered at 7:00 a.m. to prepare for the event that began at 9:00. I had the privilege of hearing several presentations as well as serving on a panel about the value of creative campuses. It was very nerve-racking to be placed in front of an audience of people desiring to learn how to cultivate creativity in and around Memphis. I certainly consider myself no authority on this topic, as were the other panelists, including the chairperson of the Arts Memphis organization, executive directors of the Memphis Symphony and Opera Memphis, and a professor from the Memphis College of Art. But I was willing to give it a chance.

Lauren Kennedy, the other senior CODA scholar, was also supposed to serve on this panel, but due to a family emergency she had to drive to Dallas that morning, leaving me as the only current college student for a panel discussion on "creative campuses." The discussion was facilitated by Dr. Steven Tepper, the assistant director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University. His current work centers on the role creativity plays in the importance of the college experience, and how the creativity fostered by a college or university can impact the city of which it is a part.

Dr. Tepper had sent us a series of questions about this topic, the first of which dealt with "signs of cultural vitality" in your city and how colleges and universities can contribute to creating this vitality. The other members of the panels spoke eloquently, but seemed to speak from a more "political" approach than I was expecting. By "political" I mean they reacted like politicians in a debate, re-working the question posed to speak on what they wish to articulate. Many of the talks centered on how their organization is working to creative more cultural vitality in Memphis, but very rarely did they mention how an institution like Rhodes could help to create that. Nor did they provide much insight into Dr. Tepper's question about what they would like the cultural landscape of Memphis to look like in ten years.

Using what we've discussed in CODA and what I've witnessed in our trips to New York and San Francisco, I tried to articulate what I understand to be cultural vitality. In order for a city to have a thriving cultural landscape there must be a sense of "communal ownership." This must be "our" city. While Memphis has many bohemian districts that cultivate new arts and many established arts like the symphony and opera, what it lacks is this communal ownership of the city. The suburban sprawl has people living 40 miles from each other and calling themselves Memphians. Some Memphians avoid going "downtown" at all costs. A driving mentality of many citizens deals with three private questions: Am I safe? Are my children in a good school? and do I have a good job? If the answers to these three questions are "yes," then many people are satisfied.

So what can a college do to create a communal ownership of a city like Memphis? Through partnerships like those that the McCoy cultivates with Playhouse on the Square, through partnerships of the Rhodes Singers and the Memphis symphony, Idlewild Presbyterian Church, and other organizations. It's through CODA initiatives that bring artists to campus for talks and master classes. When you introduce passionate, intelligent, driven students into the world of cultural policy, they can bring about change. They will introduce new ideas that come from a college experience that encourages taking risks.

I believe that the symposium was a success, and I hope everyone learned as much about new methods of creating a culturally thriving city as I did.