Minnesota Humanities Center Names David O'Fallon Its New President
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.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100908/CG61421)
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100908/CG61421)
"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 |
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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE |
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MacPhail Center for Music, Minneapolis, Minnesota |
2002-Present |
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President |
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Perpich Center for Arts Education (PCAE), Golden Valley, MN |
1995-2002 |
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Executive Director |
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State agency governed by a board appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. |
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John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts |
1993-1995 |
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Staff Director |
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National Endowment for the Arts, Arts in Education |
1989-1993 |
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Director |
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University of Minnesota |
1975-1989 |
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Director |
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Center for Local Arts Development |
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Started this center to provide planning, organizational development services, strategic plans for middle size and smaller and community based arts and cultural organizations. |
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Split Rock Arts Program |
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Redesigned and renewed this intensive summer arts colony at University of Minnesota Duluth, on Lake Superior, multi-disciplines, regional and national artists. |
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Arts Leadership Institute/Humphrey Institute. |
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Created this national program. |
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Leadership, planning, ethical, aesthetic and policy issues for leaders in arts organizations. Participants from over 15 states and other nations. |
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Speaker, consultant, facilitator: extensive national and international experience |
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Examples: |
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Creative Oklahoma, World Creative Forum—current and on going. |
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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. |
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Attended World Creative Forum in Stuttgart, Germany December 2010. |
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Helping design and lead sessions at World Creative Forum, international conference in Oklahoma City, November 2010. |
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Lincoln Center Institute, New York City |
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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. |
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National Endowment for the Arts, Education Leadership Institute. 2007-2009 |
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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. |
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Nevada Arts Council, December, 2009 |
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Designed and led leadership intensive for the state arts council and key partners in face of state budget crisis. |
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Florida Music Educators, Florida Arts Alliance 2003-2009 |
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Keynote presentations at state conferences, leadership sessions and summer institutes, multiple times. |
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Faculty Chair, 1997-2000 |
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Empire State Partnership Project |
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Summer Institutes, Sara Lawrence |
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New York |
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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. |
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Invited writer and responder to Grantmaker's in the Arts national conference, on trends in education and arts funding. |
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Los Angeles, October 2005 |
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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 |
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Ringling Brothers Museum and Foundation, Naples, FL |
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Statewide conference on arts, artists and education. |
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Keynote speaker, October, 2005 |
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Invited facilitator, resource to Education Commission of the States Steering Committee, |
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Arkansas, April 2005 and June 2006. |
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Presentations in London, Glasgow, Dublin, St Petersburg. |
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EDUCATION |
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Doctor of Humane Letters, Honorary PhD |
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St John's University, 2006 |
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Collegeville, MN |
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PhD, theatre and community |
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The Union Graduate Institute, 1974 |
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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. |
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Final project was the design and development of a theatre deeply rooted in its community. |
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Result: In the Heart of the Beast Theatre, now some 35 years old. |
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MFA (incomplete) 1970-71 |
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University of California, Davis |
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Member Professional Resident Theatre Company |
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Left early due to closure of universities by governor due to political unrest and to begin PhD. |
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BA |
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St John's University, 1965 |
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Collegeville, MN |
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Harvard Institute In Arts Administration |
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Summer Intensive, 1985 |
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OTHER SERVICE |
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Arts Culture and Heritage Fund, State of Minnesota |
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Member of state team that wrote 25 year vision and 10-year plan. |
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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. |
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Service on National Endowment for the Arts panels on arts and learning. |
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Service on Minnesota State Arts Board panels. |
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SOURCE Minnesota Humanities Center
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