Minnesota Humanities Center Names David O'Fallon Its New President

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Minnesota Humanities Center

Sep 08, 2010, 03:44 ET

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The board of directors of the Minnesota Humanities Center today elected David O'Fallon its new president, effective November 1.  Dr. O'Fallon has been CEO of MacPhail Center for Music since 2002 and prior to that was executive director of the Perpich Center for Arts Education.

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"This is a very exciting time for the Minnesota Humanities Center and having David O'Fallon join us as our new leader is great news for us all," said Susan Kelly, board president.  "He shares our vision and has the passion to take the work of the Center to an even broader base as he joins an incredibly strong leadership team."

O'Fallon said he is very pleased to have this opportunity to help shape the future of the Humanities Center.  "I believe that by engaging in the humanities we draw upon the best of our selves and our cultures, we understand more fully where we come from and where we stand.  That prepares us to actively create a strong democracy,"  he said.  "The humanities and the arts connect us and sustain us.  Never before has this been more needed."

O'Fallon fills the position previously held by Dr. Stanley Romanstein, who joined the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as president and CEO in May after serving nine years as president of the MHC.

O'Fallon joined MacPhail Center for Music in 2002 and has established it as one of the nation's leading music education centers.  Under his leadership the student enrollment more than doubled in seven years, with 170 teaching artists from around the world.  As MacPhail's community partnerships increased, MacPhail also initiated a music therapy program.

The Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) was established in 1971 as a 501 (c)(3) organization affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Its programs use the power of the humanities to narrow the achievement gap in Minnesota schools as it focuses on increasing academic achievement by all students statewide.  Its success in helping schools close the achievement gap is documented though research done by the Wilder Foundation and by the Minneapolis Public Schools.

The MHC works directly with teachers, schools and communities statewide to create more engaging and meaningful learning experiences for all students.  It also works with schools to make sure the curriculum connects with students from a variety of cultures, ethnicities and experiences.

The MHC has an active partnership with the Council on Black Minnesotans, the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Chicano Latino Affairs Council and the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans.  These partnerships are funded by the Minnesota Legislature through the arts and cultural heritage amendment.

Dr. O'Fallon is a native Minnesotan, growing up in Litchfield and graduating from St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn.  He earned his PhD in theatre and community from The Union Graduate Institute and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from St. John's University.

He developed and directed several arts leadership programs for the University of Minnesota from 1975-1989, when he joined the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C. as director of arts education.

In 1993, he became staff director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where he succeeded in placing the arts in the nation's education goals.

He returned to Minnesota in 1995 to head the Perpich Center, a state agency that included the State Arts High School, the Professional Development Institute, a Research Center, all on a 30-acre campus in Golden Valley.

(Complete bio is below.)

The Minnesota Humanities Center operates on an annual budget of approximately $4 million, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the State of Minnesota, corporate and family foundations, individual donors and earned revenues.

DAVID O'FALLON


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE


MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis, Minnesota

2002-Present

President
  • One of the nation's leading music education centers
  • Grew from 4000 to over 8200 students in 7 years
  • 170 teaching artists from around the world.
  • Budget grew from about $4 million to $8 million.
  • Expanded from one to three primary sites.
  • Community partnerships grew from 12 to 50.
  • Music Therapy program initiated went from a handful to over 900 clients.
  • Successfully completed $25 million capital campaign, the first ever in the 100 year history.
  • Led effort to get $5 million bonding through state legislature.
  • James Dayton designed flagship facility gained national attention, awards (mentioned in NY Times magazine)
  • New strategic plan and business plan.




Perpich Center for Arts Education (PCAE), Golden Valley, MN

1995-2002

Executive Director

State agency governed by a board appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate.
  • Includes State Arts High School, Professional Development Institute, Research Center on 30 acre campus.
  • 100 staff and faculty.
  • 300 on campus students in Arts High School
  • Served hundreds of artists and educators, schools and arts organizations across the state.
  • Grew budget from $5 million to about $9 million
  • Added new $6.9 million building.
  • Successfully explained and defended PCAE to legislature, governor.
  • $3 million Annenberg grant.
  • $2 million McKnight Foundation grant




John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

1993-1995

Staff Director
  • Led national task force to place the arts in National Education Goals.
  • Task force had bi-coastal billionaire chairs (James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, Harold Williams, Chair, The Getty Trust)
  • Publication: The Power of the Arts To Transform Education.
  • Succeeded in placing the arts in national education goals.
  • Extensive public speaking and presentations across the nation.
  • Helped develop Arts Education Partnership, 100 national organizations focused on public policy, research and advocacy for arts in education.




National Endowment for the Arts, Arts in Education

1989-1993

Director
  • Directed and redesigned $8 million grants program
  • Effective relationships with national arts organizations in every discipline, artists and agencies in 50 states.
  • Partnerships and joint programs with US Department of Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, others.
  • Successfully navigated the turmoil of the NEA and Congressional and White House during the peak of the "cultural wars."




University of Minnesota

1975-1989

Director

Center for Local Arts Development

Started this center to provide planning, organizational development services, strategic plans for middle size and smaller and community based arts and cultural organizations.

Split Rock Arts Program

Redesigned and renewed this intensive summer arts colony at University of Minnesota Duluth, on Lake Superior, multi-disciplines, regional and national artists.

Arts Leadership Institute/Humphrey Institute.

Created this national program.

Leadership, planning, ethical, aesthetic and policy issues for leaders in arts organizations. Participants from over 15 states and other nations.


Speaker, consultant, facilitator: extensive national and international experience


Examples:

Creative Oklahoma, World Creative Forum—current and on going.

Consult with Creative Oklahoma and national advisory group on a national network of creative sites and regions, aligned with international Creative districts, led by Flanders, Belgium.

Attended World Creative Forum in Stuttgart, Germany December 2010.

Helping design and lead sessions at World Creative Forum, international conference in Oklahoma City, November 2010.


Lincoln Center Institute, New York City

Advisor to the education arm of Lincoln Center as the institute implements its goal of  Imagination Conversations across the nation. The key concept is that the imagination is an essential resource as we confront economic, political, cultural, technological challenges and that education is not developing it, as it must.


National Endowment for the Arts, Education Leadership Institute. 2007-2009

Helped design and then facilitated this 3 day intensive for leadership teams from 5 states to "redesign" education systems.  Facilitated first three of this on-going NEA project. 15 states participated.


Nevada Arts Council, December, 2009

Designed and led leadership intensive for the state arts council and key partners in face of state budget crisis.


Florida Music Educators, Florida Arts Alliance 2003-2009

Keynote presentations at state conferences, leadership sessions and summer institutes, multiple times.



Faculty Chair, 1997-2000

Empire State Partnership Project

Summer Institutes, Sara Lawrence

New York

This intensive institute brought artists and arts organizations from across the state of New York to work with educators on new ways of bringing the arts to education.


Invited writer and responder to Grantmaker's in the Arts national conference, on trends in education and arts funding.

Los Angeles, October 2005


Speak/consult with Columbia College, Chicago and the Donor's Forum (major regional foundations), Chicago on the teaching artist, artists as educators. Chicago, Feb 2006


Ringling Brothers Museum and Foundation, Naples, FL

Statewide conference on arts, artists and education.

Keynote speaker, October, 2005


Invited facilitator, resource to Education Commission of the States Steering Committee,

Arkansas, April 2005 and June 2006.


Presentations in London, Glasgow, Dublin, St Petersburg.


EDUCATION


Doctor of Humane Letters, Honorary PhD

St John's University, 2006

Collegeville, MN


PhD, theatre and community

The Union Graduate Institute, 1974

The challenge of this graduate program was to learn from those doing the work you are called to do, wherever they are. I studied with and worked with leaders and artists from California to New York.

Final project was the design and development of a theatre deeply rooted in its community.

Result: In the Heart of the Beast Theatre, now some 35 years old.


MFA (incomplete) 1970-71

University of California, Davis

Member Professional Resident Theatre Company

Left early due to closure of universities by governor due to political unrest and to begin PhD.


BA

St John's University, 1965

Collegeville, MN


Harvard Institute In Arts Administration

Summer Intensive, 1985


OTHER SERVICE


Arts Culture and Heritage Fund, State of Minnesota

Member of state team that wrote 25 year vision and 10-year plan.


Chair, board of American Composers Forum, the leading organization for composers and the encouragement of composition (original music) by a wide variety of peoples and communities.


Service on National Endowment for the Arts panels on arts and learning.


Service on Minnesota State Arts Board panels.

SOURCE Minnesota Humanities Center

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