Building community and conversation through the arts

George Mason has a long history of supporting the arts on campus and in the community. With seven academic programs, seven galleries, six community arts programs, two major venues, and the digital venue Mason Arts Amplified, Mason Arts continues to create a thriving artistic community right here in Northern Virginia. 

On this episode of Access to Excellence, President Gregory Washington is joined by Rick Davis, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at George Mason and the executive director of the Hylton Performing Arts Center. An accomplished director, author, professor, and George Mason baseball cap collector, Davis and President Washington discuss the history of the arts at George Mason, and the critical role the arts play in creating and maintain community.  

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Trailblazers in research,innovators in technology,
and those who simply have a good story;
all make up the fabric thatis George Mason University.
We're taking on the grand challengesthat face our students, graduates;
and higher education is ourmission and our passion.
Hosted by Mason PresidentGregory Washington,
this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

(00:27):
It was famed sculpture,Henry Moore who said,
"to be an artist is to believein life." My guest today
embodies a passion for the artsthat echoes this sentiment.
Rick Davis is the Dean of the Collegeof Visual and Performing Arts at George
Mason and the executive director ofthe Hilton Performing Arts Center.

(00:48):
He has directed numerous theatricaland operatic productions across the
United States, authored four books,
co-written an opera and an oratorio,
and has become reallyfamous around campus for his
signature George Mason baseball cap.
.
Rick, welcome to the show.

(01:10):
Thank you so much, Mr. President. And,and just for your listeners benefit, um,
I'm wearing the cap right now,so you just have to imagine a,
a yellow hat here on the podcast.
Outstanding. Outstanding.
So you're one of the peoplewho have a continuity here.
Your continuity at GeorgeMason is amazing, right?
Came here in 1991.

(01:31):
Yep.
Right,
when you started as an artistic directorof Theater of the First Amendment.
Yep.
And a member of the theater faculty. Soit's kind of like a three part question.
What brought you to George Mason?What was George Mason like?
And what has kept you here for 35 years?

(01:52):
Well, what brought me here,let's take 'em in order.
What brought me here wasTheater of the First Amendment.
It was a brand new experiment,uh, in founded in 1990. Um,
when the Institute of theArts was founded here,
the the year that I like to callthe Big Bang at Mason for the arts,
because we opened the Centerfor the Arts in October of 1990.
The institute was founded, youknow, in August, basically to,

(02:13):
to create a new way of teaching the artsat George Mason. And part of that was,

uh, creating a professional theater: professional, meaning paid actors and, (02:18):
undefined
and designers, members of actors',equity, you know, the actors' union, and,
and then incorporating students throughoutthe productions as as appropriate.
So a student might be cast in a role, uh,
but they would have tocompete for that role.
But we had some of the best actors anddesigners in the whole DC metro area,

(02:39):
which is a great theater town, uh, comingto campus three, four times a year,
and staging professional productionsright in the middle of this
brand new theater program. And I thought,
I was very happily engaged upin Baltimore at Center Stage.
I had not heard of GeorgeMason University at this time.
When I saw this opportunity,I said, here's a chance that,

(02:59):
where I can practice everything I love.I love directing, I love education.
I love the theater world. I lovethe liberal arts. And, and I, I,
this was a chance to try tobe a professional theater artist in a liberal arts
environment. Wow, you know,what's this about? So I came down,
did the interview, got the job,
and it was really amazing whatwas going on here at the time.

(03:20):
The place was, I think,maybe 17,000 students.
I think I remember that numbercorrectly, approximately that in,
in '91 it was a commuterschool, you know? Absolutely.
The weekends were dead as doornails around here.
But the Center for the Arts andthe Theater of the First Amendment,
TFA for short, we weretrying to change that,
trying to give people a reason to stayon campus. We did primarily new work,

(03:43):
new plays. We commissioned a lot of plays.
We did plays on all subjects, eventhough we were called theater,
the First Amendment,
which made some people think we weredoing like constitutional dramas and
everything. Well, we actually .
That is exactly what Ithought I'm thinking. Did you come out in your, you know,
three pointed hat? You know, and...
To, to be fair, we, we did a coupleof, of dramas on that theme. Uh,

(04:06):
not necessarily the tricorns, but we dida play about Oliver Wendell Holmes, uh,
which is actually beautiful plankcalled The Wonderful One-Hoss-Shay uh,
by Paul D'Andre, uh, who's a, by the way,
an Emeritus Robinson professorin at George Mason. Um,
and it was really the founding guy,the guy who thought up the idea of,
of the Theater of the First Amendment.And by the way, on the name Dr. D'Andrea,

(04:27):
Paul,
named it because George Mason was theauthor of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights, which led to the Billof Rights, of which of course,
the First Amendment is the one that isthe most celebrated and arguably the most
essential. And so it was like an honoringsort of, in a not quite direct way,
but a, I think, a meaningful way thatthe, uh, idea of, of George Mason,

(04:48):
the man. Anyway, the theater hadgreat success for probably, well,
we, we lasted 22 years, uh,but it was quite successful.
And we won a lot of Helen HayesAwards. We got a lot of great press.
We originated plays that went on to manyother productions at other professional
theaters around the country. Uh, we hadcast albums. We produced a video, uh,
that went on to PBS, actuallycalled Nathan the Wise.

(05:11):
And then in 2010, '11, '12, webegan to realize two things.
One, that the theater department,
which was by then calledthe School of Theater,
had probably quintupled in sizesince the days when we all started
in the early nineties, from about30 majors to about 120 or 150.
And there wasn't room on our stagesanymore for three or four fully

(05:36):
staged professional productions if wewere gonna serve our students properly.
So space, time, and frankly,budget all made us keep,
we sort of shrunk the season, you know,
from four plays to three plays to twoplays to the occasional play .
And then we said, you know what? This,let's just wind this down, you know,
because it did its job. It, itcreated a great school of theater.

(05:56):
It produced a lot of work that wenton into the world and is still being
performed.
And we all had to sort of get on withthe business of now running a college of
visual and performing arts thatwas growing incredibly fast.
So that's kind of the, the shortstory of that arc. I tell you what, I,
I have had multiple, and I'm notexaggerating multiple people who remember,
or just multiple people who see, uh, youknow, some sort of record of it. Hey,

(06:20):
wouldn't this be a good idea to, tobring this back? And I say, yes, yes,
it would. And it, and you knowwhat? It wouldn't have to come,
let's make policy on the air here. It,it wouldn't have to come back as a fully,
you know, whole seasonof, you know, four plays.
It could come back asthe occasional instance.
The occasional one-off.
Yep. All right. Let's do it.
. There it is. Thereit is. Amazing. Amazing.

(06:42):
I like this meeting. This is agood meeting. Let's, let's keep,
let's keep this going.
. Let's keep going.. So last year, uh,
you gave a presentationto the Board of Visitors,
and you began that presentationwith your mantra, the arts,
create community. Talkto us about the tagline,
what inspired it and whatdoes it actually mean?

(07:05):
Oh, thank you.
I call it my forward elevator speechbecause it encapsulates basically
everything I believe aboutthe value of the arts.
And I'm going backhistorically, you know, to,
to ancient civilizationsthat that created, you know,
theater and dance and musicand, and cave paintings and,
and sculptures and everything that,
that the way the arts havealways expressed themselves.

(07:26):
Why were they born and why do they exist?
Because people need occasions to cometogether. And for a lot of people,
religion forms that function andthe religion in the arts have a,
a strong connection, sometimesvery tense connection, but,
but a very strong connection in termsof ritual and in terms of, of symbolism.
For some people, sports frankly,

(07:47):
create that opportunity for me aswell. Uh, I know for you, you know,
we love to go to a, a sporting eventbecause it's a ritual, right? It's a,
it's a collective experience. Weall see the same thing and react,
maybe not in the same way,but if everybody reacts right,
you can be booing and cheering, uh, atthe same play depending on your team.
But you're reacting and you'rereacting as part of a community.

(08:09):
Same thing happens in a,in a play or an opera.
The same thing happensquietly in an art museum,
because people are walking by a,a painting or, or standing in,
in front of a sculpture, and itcatches them and it stops them.
It interrupts their day alittle bit. And great paintings,
one person stops and then another personstops, and then another person stops.
And suddenly you get a littleaudience right in front.

(08:30):
And it's amazing what happens there,
because everybody's concentrating onthe same thing for a little while.
You know, in the case of a play, itmight be two hours or three hours,
or God knows, four hours, uh, .
But the value of bringing peopletogether in, in common contemplation,
or having a common experience, Ithink is really vital to civilization.
And I'm not being hyperbolic here.

(08:51):
I think civilizationrequires opportunities for people to come together and
witness things collectively, andthen form their own conclusions.
But when you go to a play that's working,whether it's a comedy or a tragedy,
or anything in between, and youfeel that unanimity or that variety,
but also people breathing together,laughing together, crying together,

(09:14):
you are part of a temporary communitythat actually reminds us all of our
common humanity. And if I might, I'll,
I'll give a quick example from Theaterof the First Amendment's days of how this
worked in a, in a time of crisis.Um, and I'm talking about,
I'm talking about late September, 2001.At that time, we had on the stage,
quite accidentally this productioncalled "Nathan the Wise",

(09:36):
adapted by Paul D'Andrea.
He adapted it from a German playwritten in the 18th century by Gotthold
Lessing, who had written this play called"Nathan the Wise" to set in Jerusalem
in the time of the ThirdCrusade, where the,
the Muslim ruler Saladinwas the leader of Jerusalem,
where the Christian forces,the Knight's Templar and,

(09:58):
and the Crusaders were knockingat the gates of Jerusalem.
And there was a Christian patriarchtending to the religious life of the
Christians in Jerusalem. You hadSaladin ruling, you had Nathan the Wise,
who was a Jewish merchant. Uh, andwe brought together Christianity,
Islam,
and Judaism in one city ata time of enormous crisis,

(10:19):
and showed through the action of the playhow the three Abrahamic religions can
actually converse with each other andcan actually reach common understanding.
And we were doing that play just 'causewe thought it was a cool theme, right?
And it was an 18th century ideathat was still resonating. Well,
September 11th happened, and we weregonna open September 28th, I think. And,

(10:41):
you know, we actually had aconversation, can, should we do this?
Can we do this? And unanimouslywe said, yes, we must do this.
So we put the play on, and itcaught fire. Quite literally. It,
people came over and over to see it,
especially members of ourlocal Islamic community.
The Egyptian ambassador came severaltimes. Uh, he said to us later,

(11:04):
and I quote directly,
"this play is a bridge to thepoint of rescue for our people."
Because it affirmed the value ofreligious acceptance and religious
tolerance. Not religious identity,
not religious collapse into one viewpoint,
but the idea that all these greatreligious traditions have a place,

(11:26):
and there's no way to tell which isthe, the true one or the best one.
And to think that that idea came froma German playwright writing in the
1780s, and had been adapted byan American playwright in 2001,
and was being producedin Fairfax, Virginia.
And then that's wherethe PBS video came from.
This play was taped, and those tapesare in every public library in Egypt.

(11:51):
I mean, it's just, it just hadan amazing worldwide impact.
And that's creating community on a,on a big scale, because it gave...
Oh, without question.
You know, it gave people something to,to help them understand the moment.
No, without question. And when you'rebringing this up, I'm like, wow. A,
that's amazing. B,
it made me think how timelessthe general issue was.

(12:13):
Yeah.
But then I started to ask some questions.
It seems to me that there wouldbe some modification to deal
with that, the issue that was at handat the time. Right. You know, you,
you had 9/11 hit.
You had this play thatwas literally put together
before 9/11.
Yep.
Right?

(12:33):
Yep.
Not with 9/11 in mind.
Correct.
9/11 Comes,
do you modify it to takeinto account some of
the aspects of what was literallyplaying out in front of our eyes?
Did you all do that?
We didn't have to change a word.
Amazing. Amazing.
Partly because Paul D'Andrea, the,

(12:54):
the playwright translator adapterhad already adapted the play with a
20th century 21st,early 21st century lens.
It was still very much Lessing play.
But Paul had already given ita contemporary still set in,
in ancient Jerusalem. I mean,it was a period, you know,
setting and costumes and everything.But the, but the story was already,

(13:16):
you know, adapted to a certain extent.
The one thing we did immediately wasstart looking for ways of creating how
to process this. So, you know, a lot ofpost-play discussions, we had seminars,
we had panels,
and then after the run of the play thatcontinued in all kinds of settings in,
in Islamic centers, ininterfaith centers, uh, in,
in community centers around the NorthernVirginia region, there were several,

(13:40):
if not many encounters that peopleasked us to help facilitate.
So the conversation continuedwell after the play closed.
That's amazing. Well,
you can't talk about communitywithout talking about the two
pillars of bringing folktogether in that community.
And so I want to talkabout 'em separately here,
but what makes the Center for theArts a critical part of the arts

(14:04):
community for both GeorgeMason and for the region?
So the Center for the Artsin Fairfax is of course,
our signature facility hereon the, on the Fairfax Campus,
where we do the vast majorityof our, of our instruction.
The Center for the Arts was created outof the mind of President George Johnson,
quite literally, uh, and hiswife, Joanne, to say, let,
let's put George Mason on the map asa place where the arts are happening,

(14:27):
and how are we gonna do that? 'cause wedon't really have big arts programs yet.
So we have to bring in, we haveto bring the world to Fairfax.
We have to bring Yo-Yo Ma to Fairfax.
We have to bring MichaelFeinstein to Fairfax.
We have to bring these incredibleartists. We, uh, you know, Roberta Peters,

Denyce Graves (14:43):
great top level artists, right,
who came to and are stillcoming every year to Fairfax.
And that was something thatchanged the campus culture.
If you talk to visitor HoraceBlackman, former rector of our board,
who was a student here during the opening,he, he started in the late eighties,
graduated in the early nineties.
So he intersected with the opening of theCenter for the Arts. He will tell you,

(15:07):
he's told me that the opening of theCenter for the Arts changed George Mason
completely, because all of a suddenthe world was coming to Mason.
You had a place to go on the weekends.You had meaningful things to do.
You had the opportunity to be partof the world conversation about music
and dance theater. And that gaveeverybody, not only on campus,

(15:29):
but in the whole sort of NorthernVirginia region, a rallying point.
It literally created acommunity. And from that,
we have built the academicprograms because the presence of all these wonderful
artists that come in over the course ofa season has also benefited our students
tremendously through masterclasses, through, frankly,
through facultyrecruitment, . We've,

(15:51):
we've recruited a bunch of facultysort of off the road, uh, when they're,
when they're ready to leavetheir touring performing career.
That's cool. So they come here, perform,
then you recruit 'emlater to be faculty here.
Yep. Our, our whole School of Dancepractically answers that description, uh,
and it, and it's just, just amazing.
That's really, really cool.
Yeah.
That is fabulous.

(16:13):
And it's still happening. So that, thatcenter has, is still doing the work.
And, you know, of course, it's,it's showing its age. You know, it,
it was open in 1990 and it's,it's been lovingly taken care of,
but it hasn't been updated. So wehave a, a major campaign ongoing.
We're calling it Give Voice. We want,
we wanna give voice to the Centerfor the Arts and make it a modern,
technologically rich and morestudent-friendly facility.

(16:36):
Because when it opened, we didn't havethe students to fill it, but now we do.
So we're hard on that job right now.
Look, the reality is it doesneed a facelift, an update,
so to speak. And we're gonna workwith you to make that one happen.
It is time.
It is time. Yep. .
It, it was time 10, 15 years ago.

(16:58):
That's right. That's right.
So,
talk to us a little bit about the othercore facility we have for bringing
the community together toHylton Performing Arts Center,
and that's on our Science andTechnology campus in Manassas.
Oh, I'd love to. Um, youknow, the, I had the pleasure.
You mentioned it in the intro. I hadthe still have the pleasure actually of,

(17:19):
of having the title of executivedirector of the Hylton. And,
and that was my only job here for afew years, between 2011 and,
and 2015 when I, when I becamedean. Uh, so I have a deep,
deep connection to that facility.Um, we built the Hylton Center,
and by the way, for everybody listeningon the podcast, that's H-Y-L-T-O-N,
right? . It's, it'snot the, not the hotel chain,
it's the Hylton Foundation anda man named Conrad Hylton, uh,

(17:42):
who is a major developer in, inthe Prince William County area. Uh,
they gave the naming gift for thatback in the mid two thousands.
The facility opened in 2010,
and we built that essentially asan expression of George Mason's
commitment to community partnerships,
because Prince William County and theCity of Manassas essentially asked us if

(18:02):
we would partner with themto create a distinctive,
representative,
inspiring cultural facility thatwould help their city and county,
and that region,
take the next step into the communitythat they wanted to become. So we,
we bill ourselves, I, thisis a term I use a lot.

(18:22):
We bill ourselves as a symbol ofchange and as an agent of change,
we're doing both of thosethings in...at SciTech.
This is one of the most beautifultheaters anywhere on the East Coast.
The architecture is distinctive fromthe moment you walk into the lobby.
Every space is designed witharchitectural distinction in mind.

(18:43):
The acoustics in the main hall are praisedby every single artist who comes in,
whether they're a classical conductoror a pianist, or a jazz player,
or a bluegrass musician. Everybodyloves playing in that hall.
And perhaps most importantly,
it has uplifted the local andregional arts community to

(19:04):
a very high degree, the ManassasBallet, the Manassas Chorale,
the Manassas Symphony, PrinceWilliam Little Theater,
a youth orchestra that's going by thename of the Onyx Project now...CPAC,
the Creative and Performing Arts Centerfrom, from Woodbridge, these entities,
which all pre-existed the Hylton, butwere doing their work in middle school,
auditoriums and, you know,church basements and everything.

(19:25):
Now they have truly a worldclass facility to play in.
And over these 15 yearsthat we've been operating,
their work has gotten biggerand better and more popular,
and they've attracted morepeople in the audience.
But just as importantly for them,they've attracted more people on stage,
more people to participate in thesecommunity-based artistic expressions.
So it's been a,
it's been a huge success for thecommunity and for George Mason as well,

(19:47):
because people see us as thepurveyor and the partner that
without us, this, this thingwouldn't have happened.
And I'll, and I'll be honest withyou, this, the acoustics, the layout:
first of all, it lookslike a classical theater.
Yeah.
It has that, uh, classicaltheater look and feel.
But the acoustics there justseem to be outstanding. I mean,

(20:11):
there's no echo. It's great soundwherever you are in the facility.
Yeah.
People sound so clear.
And if you're on stage in thattheater and you, you're a singer,
whatever player,
you get just the right amount of soundcoming back to you so you know that
it's,
you know that the hall is embracing youand that people just love playing there.

(20:31):
And, and that, that means alot because they play better.
Well, every,
every single performance that I'veseen there has been spectacular.
It is, it's a gem, right? It's,wWe'retrying to make it less of a hidden gem.
Right. Well, we're, we'rebuilding around it. Right.
It is definitely a gem.
Yeah. That, and that'sthe other thing. I mean,
I want to give an a shoutout to my predecessor,

(20:53):
founding Dean of CVPA Bill Reeder,
who really had an incredible amount ofvision and amount of energy focused on
the Hylton Center during his time.
He really did a lot of the groundbreakingfundraising and "friend"-raising that
allowed that to happen. And itwas his vision to have that shape,
that sort of Italian opera house shape,because he was an opera singer, .

(21:14):
And, and I, he sort of knew that,that that sort of classical horseshoe,
you know, balcony shapewould be effective.
And the great thing about that waswe didn't build a 3000 seat theater.
We built a 1200 seat theater, sothat it is a friendly theater, right?
You don't have to go in there andscream your lungs out. You can,
you can go in there and, and if you'rean actor, you can have a, just a,

(21:36):
a good performance with yournormal voice. If you're a singer,
you don't have to work sohard. If you're a violinist,
you don't have to be scraping away.You, you can make your beautiful tone.
And a lot of that comes fromBill's musical background and his,
his understanding that the communityneeded a place where they would shine.
This is both an amazing historyof the two facilities and really,

(21:59):
really great feedback in termsof how they use and how they
engage the respective community.
Do you have a feeling that theyserve different communities
or do they serve the same community?
Yeah, increasingly that's the case.
That was not the casewhen we opened the Hylton.
They really had twoseparate audiences. Uh,

(22:20):
but we have found overthe years that there's,
now there's a lot more people whoare subscribing to both venues. Uh,
a lot more of our student workis finding a home at the Hylton,
which we love because the studentslook great there. And the,
the community out there really embracesour students when they come out, uh,
primarily music and theater, but somedance as well. So there's a greater,

(22:40):
greater overlap.
And I think that fits the whole ideathat the leaders of Manassas and Prince
William had back in...the idea,actually started in the 1990s, um,
for this thing to happen. It justtook 20 years to realize . Uh,
but they really saw that Manassas andPrince William County were becoming part
of a metro area. And the,

(23:01):
the divisions were being slowly butsurely erased between, you know,
the, the close-in suburbs andthe, and the outer suburbs,
and the exurbs and therural area. There's a,
that sort of westward flow thatis really making those communities
more, uh, accessible to oneanother. And I celebrate that.
I think that's really, really cool.
So you also speak about how artists abhor

(23:25):
deficits and that their workserves to fill the holes they see
in the world.
Yeah.
Talk to us about what you mean by deficit.
Yeah. Well, , thankyou for that question. Uh,
it's one of my favorite metaphors, um,
and I use it because I'm beinga little tricky, actually. Um,
when a lot of of peoplethink about artists,

(23:46):
they think about deficits being like,you're not making enough money. .
Right. Because.
That's what I originallythought when I saw it. .
Yeah. Because it, you know,it's a hard business, uh,
whether it's institutionalor, or personal.
But what I mean by that isevery work of art at any level
is made because of something. It,it's never random. There, there's,

(24:08):
there's a, uh, a myth.
I think that sometimes creativity justhappens because somebody has an idea.
Well, yeah, sure, that's true.But where did that idea come from?
Why was that idea givenspace in a person's life,
to take the time tocreate something about it?
So the deficit is an artist looks around
and sees something missing in the world.

(24:31):
And that's something can be,if you're a visual artist,
it could be something as simple as,there's not enough blue in our world.
Right. I'm being a littlebit, you know, general.
I, I hear you.
But, but there are artists whopaint like only blue things, right?
Or Mark Rothko paints likeonly red things, right?
Lots of shades of red and black,and then red, but mostly red. Or if,

(24:53):
if you're a, if you'rea theater person, uh,
maybe there's a deficit of celebration,or maybe there's a deficit of, well,
I like to say deficit of community.
Maybe there's a deficit of harmonyif you're a musician or dissonance,
if that's the voice you wanna project,
maybe you think the world needs to be alittle more dissonant so it can sort of
argue its problems out. Right? Um,
and sometimes that's very consciouson the part of the artist.

(25:16):
A lot of times it's unconscious.But I think it always happens. You,
you have an intuition that if I paintthis painting, or make this sculpture,
or write this play or play this song,
I'm going to be adding somethingto the world that the world needs,
even if they don't know that they need it.
And even if I'm not beingutilitarian and saying, yes, I'm,

(25:37):
I'm diagnosing a particular conditionand I'm creating a particular pill for it
through making work, it's really moreon the inside. It's really more saying,
why am I gonna take the time tocreate if I'm not trying to fill
a hole? That's the, you said that, thatphrase fill a hole in the world, a hole.
I think artists consciouslyor unconsciously,
and it's often more unconscious thanconscious, are looking around and feeling,

(26:00):
you know, um, Ipsen, you, you openedwith that great quote from the sculptor.
I have a quote from my favoriteplaywright, Henrik Ibsen,
one of my favorite playwrightswho said, "to be a poet is,
most importantly, to see",
"to be a poet is most importantly tosee." So it's like, artists are our job.
Our, the,
the reason the world puts up with us isthat we take the time to actually look

(26:25):
around and actually see and actually feel,
and we have these antennae that aretuned to what's happening in the
world. Again, not necessarily in aparticularly specific way, but in the,
in the zeitgeist, in the, in the flowof feelings, in the, in the atmosphere.
And our job is to talkabout that. And, you know,

(26:45):
sometimes it's righton the nose, you know,
like Nathan the Wise turned out to beright on the nose accidentally .
Right. Uh, but sometimesit's very abstract. You,
you go to a Beethoven's 9th or, or, youknow, go to go to any great symphony,
and you might just be transported outof your day-to-day flow for a couple
hours. And that might be exactlywhat you need on that night.

(27:06):
Hmm. That is interesting. I, I didn'tthink that we were gonna go there.
So that, that is, that isreally interesting. Let me,
let me switch gears a littlebit. In the early 2000s,
the acronym STEM entered the generallexicon. And as you know, I'm an engineer,
right. STEM is shorthand forscience, technology, engineering,

(27:27):
and mathematics. And then around2010, right about a decade after,
a new movement began to updatethe acronym to include the arts
and change, the acronym tosteam. Science, technology,
engineering, arts andMathematics. And since then,
it's gone to Steam M .

(27:50):
Yes.
Medicine.
Or Steam H. Steam H.
Right. And so, so it has,it continues to morph.
And we have arts as a requirement inour core curriculum, even in general.
So what is the importanceof putting arts into science
and tech?
Oh. Oh, wow. How much time do wehave ? It's a great question.

(28:11):
It's a great question. Uh, I'll,
I'll tell you a couple quick storiesright around the time you were talking
about there, we were approached,we were approached by Boeing.
That doesn't usually work that way. Right. Right? But Boeing came to us,
the arts at Mason, and said, you know,
our current crop ofengineers needs more creative

(28:33):
thinking. Well, boy, were theyRight? Right. . Uh,
and so the Boeing Northern Virginiaheadquarters office gave us a, you know,
for us, a really sizable grantat the time, $50,000 to create
educational programming, but alsoartistic programming on the STEAM theme.
So we did a, a couple thingswith that money right away.

(28:54):
We created something calledthe Steam Table, you know,
'cause who can resist a pun? Right.
The Steam Table? Wow.
And we brought,
we brought together ourartists and scientists and engineers in a series of very
interesting conversations. Uh, andout of one of those conversations,
or a parallel conversationthat somebody else convened,
I can't remember right now. Imet a guy named Paul Glenshaw,

(29:17):
who was an aviation historian anda jazz historian, and also a very,
very fine visual artist himself.Interesting. Really interesting guy.
And I heard him give a talk abouthow aviation and jazz have had
a parallel evolution in America. It'sreally amazing. 1903, the Wright Brothers,
Buddy Bolden; 1925, LouisArmstrong; Charles Lindbergh, 1927.

(29:40):
It's like, oh my God. And youstart laying it up, you know--
Look, I, I hear you Rick. You know,
I've worked with aerospace companies asignificant portion of my career. Yeah.
That's one area where you tryto do things the same way.
Yeah.
Algorithms work the same way. And,you know, but I'm also a jazz lover.

(30:00):
Yep.
And good jazz.
Great jazz has that improviser.
Yeah.
Where you,
where you see these folk live in concertand they just take off in a direction.
And you're like, whoa.
So I can bring that back to aviation.
Yeah. Bring it back to aviation.Because I don't see how those two fit.

(30:21):
Yeah. So, so aviationprogressed somewhat linearly,
but also with conceptual leaps. Right.There, there, there were moments when,
like, when the Wright Brothers sortof figured out wing warping, right?
That was a big deal. 'causenobody was doing that before.
So they could control the airplane.
And they also figured outpower to rate ratio. So they,
they actually built an engine that couldactually lift the thing which nobody

(30:41):
had done. Then you move on. I'm gonnaleap forward to a really cool thing that,
'cause we actually did a piece aboutthis. This is where I'm going with this.
So, bebop comes in, in the 1950s,late 40s, early 50s, right?
At the same time as thejet age was coming along.
And at a time when if you weredesigning a fighter plane,
you didn't wanna be stableanymore. You wanted to be unstable.

(31:03):
You wanted to have the ability for thatplane to have a roll rate and a pitch
deviation rate that wasalmost uncontrollable.
And then figure out ways to tamp thatdown so that it, it wouldn't kill you.
And bebop is like that. If youhear, you know, Charlie Parker,
you put on Thelonious Monk, I mean, you,
you were talking about anunstable fighter plane,

(31:23):
but it's a fighter plane thatdoesn't crash . Right.
So we did a piece on this called,
"To Swing Through the Sky" that hadour Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra,
which is our professional jazzband that we put together, uh,
and had actors and dancers.And Paul wrote a script for us.
And we did this incredible video montage.
We started out back in '03 with theWright Brothers, and we ended up in,

(31:44):
in the Space Age,
and showed how jazz and flight weretaking these conceptual leaps in parallel
at like six or eight differentjunctures. And it was so incredible.
We played it at the Hilton, then weplayed it here at Center for the Arts.
We had, we've had requeststo do it elsewhere.
That was a Steam project because it showedeverybody in the audience, which was,
you know, a thousand people each time.

(32:05):
It showed people that these two subjectsactually are deeply connected in,
in the case of jazz and flight, they'revery American subjects. These, I mean,
these are things we can legitimatelycelebrate as American inventions.
So the university has hadsome, some major gifts.
Yeah.
For our arts programs.
Those have come from familieswho have historically

(32:29):
supported Mason in a big way. Right.
Why are they so compelled to give tothe arts? What has arts brought to them?
Oh man, we are so lucky, so blessed,
really at George Mason to have thefounding energy. Really, I mean,
we're still young, right?
So we're young enough that the foundingfamilies , uh, that were,

(32:49):
that were building Fairfax County at thetime, and, and Prince William as well,
they're still with us. Some, some of the,
some of the first generationsstill with us. And,
and their progeny very muchstill with us doing that work.
And I think the foundersrealized that, first of all,
the whole idea of putting a universityin a community is to build that
community. I mean, it, the,
the explicit intention of putting GeorgeMason in Fairfax was to build Northern

(33:13):
Virginia and the Petersonfamily, the, you know,
George and Joanne Johnson, theDewberry family, the Hazel family,
they have all recognized from thebeginning that the arts were one of those
building agents. Right. And so theyhave stepped up, uh, over the decades,
really, the Petersons andthe Dewberrys particularly,

(33:33):
but there are many other names wecould advance, have committed in,
in really significant amounts.And starting back in the nineties.
So it's been a long tradition ofgiving. The great little story is the,
the late Sid Dewberry,uh, of, of, you know,
Dewberry Companies becamea piano student of our

(33:54):
own Dr. Linda Monson, who's the directorof the Dewberry School of Music now.
She started giving him piano lessonswhen he was 75 years old. I mean,
she gave him piano lessons pretty muchup until, you know, the month he died.
Uh, and he loved playing the piano,and he loved Linda and her students.
And to me, that was a, a trigger for the,

(34:15):
they were already very generous,
but that was the trigger that gave hima personal experience of the value in,
in one's own life, of havingexpert instruction in music.
You know, I, I got a,
the opportunity to spend timewith him before he passed away,
and he told me, he said, look,

(34:35):
my goal is a hundred songs.
Oh, yes.
It, it was inspiring tome. I mean, I was like,
'cause he told me that he learned to play,
then he had some health issues wherehe lost the ability to play and he had
to relearn all the songsagain. And he, and he did that.
And I was, I'm just kind ofblown away by that. And yeah,

(34:58):
this guy can do it twice.
, how are yourlessons going, by the way?
Yeah, let's not talk aboutthat Better than me. .
He can do it twice. I shouldbe able to do it once.
But you, but you, you know, CarolynPeterson is an, is another one, uh,
Carolyn and Milt Peterson, thelate Milt Peterson, another,
another great developer in our area.Uh, Carolyn grew up playing music and,

(35:21):
and acting and singing,
and we have an event at her home everyyear called The Taste of ARTS by George!
That's kind of our, our previewof the, our fall fundraiser.
This event happens in the springat, at her lovely home in Fairfax.
And at the end of this event, she lovesto and has done the last few years,
she loves to sit at her beautiful babygrand piano and play a song or two,

(35:44):
uh, and get the whole audience upand singing. And, and she just loves,
and I talked to Jon,her son, Jon Peterson,
about this waiting in line atcommencement last year, I think it was.
And he said, yeah, they do that anywhere.
If there's a piano andthere's a group, you know,
like they're up in Maine with theirfriends and neighbors up there,
Carolyn will sit down and,
and start playing because they recognizethat that brings people together.

(36:06):
So it's kind of, the arts create communityall over again, but in a living room.
It brings people togetherand a actually creates joy.
I've seen one of those sessions andit's just fabulous. Just fabulous.
As we wrap up,
I want you to talk about our futuregeneration and young people who
we have been bestowed theprivilege, uh, to educate, to train,

(36:30):
and to lead. Talk to me aboutwhat legacy, relative to the arts,
what legacy would youlike to leave with them?
Yeah. Oh, wow. Well, I'm coming atthis from a perspective right now.
The day that we're recording this podcast,
I'm in the middle of rehearsing astudent production of Shakespeare's "The
Tempest". And so I'm with students,you know, till till 10:00 PM uh,

(36:53):
every night, these, these past few weeks.
And I say that because it's the greatestjoy that I can have in my life is to be
in that setting. And I'm,
I'm with these students for hours andhours and hours for six weeks. So I,
I have a really contemporary perspectiveon this. Uh, these students are hungry,
particularly the, the pandemic generation,

(37:13):
which is still working its waythrough the educational system.
They are hungry for interactions,they're hungry for real things.
They're hungry for working togetheron things, uh, in the room,
sort of working it out in theroom. And to me, that's what a,
a good artistic process is about.
An artistic process is not unlikean engineering process in that it is

(37:36):
recursive and iterative. You, you haveto try something, see if it works.
If it doesn't work, you trysomething else. If it does work,
but not as well as you'd like, you, youkeep on that path. But you adjust it,
it, it's a, it's a cycle ofcritical thinking, really.
I agree.
That where you keepdeveloping, keep developing,
and finally you have opening night. Sothat's your, that's your deliverable.
If it's a show, if you're aindividual artist, you know,

(37:59):
you might not have an opening night soyou can keep working on it 'til you to
get it right. . Uh,but, but you probably do have,
you probably have a gallery openingor something you have to shoot for.
But the idea is that the artisticwork is never really done.
You know, we're gonna, we'regonna run this play, uh,
The Tempest for six performances,I think, in Harris Theater.
It will be different on performancenumber six than it was on opening night.

(38:22):
And I hope it's different in a betterway, but it's gonna be different ,
right? Because the, the students aregonna keep learning from each other.
They're gonna keep trying things. And tome, that's the great value of the arts.
And it,
it kind of goes back to your earlierquestion about students from around the
university taking artscourses. In a good arts course,
you learn that iterative process. Youlearn that critical thinking process.

(38:42):
You learn about sortof testing hypotheses,
but those hypotheses might belanguage or music or images.
And what does this image say to you?And, and how can you make it better?
How can you understand it differently?
And that circular thought process reallyis the essence of artistic creation,
which is why I think students, oncethey experience it, they love it.

(39:03):
Outstanding, outstanding, outstanding.And what a legacy. And what a legacy,
indeed. Well, Rick, we'regonna have to leave it there.
Thank you for continuing to bringthe arts to the George Mason
community and beyond. And of course,
I would be remiss if I didn't do aplug to support the arts in Northern

(39:24):
Virginia, and to encourage ourlistening audience to come enjoy a show,
check out an exhibit,
or donate for a lastinglegacy through our Mason Now
campaign. So, I, I just want to thank youfor all that you've done and all that.
I know that you will continue to do Rick.
right back at you,Mr. President. Thank you.
Outstanding. Well, I am GeorgeMason, president Gregory Washington.

(39:48):
Thanks for listening.
And tune in next time for moreconversations that show why we are
all together different.
If you like what youheard on this podcast,
go to podcast.gmu.edu formore of Gregory Washington's
conversations with thethought leaders, experts,

(40:09):
and educators who take onthe grand challenges facing our students and graduates
in higher education.That's podcast gmu.edu.