Bolz Center alumnus David Flatley has been appointed Executive Director for the Office of Community Arts Partnerships (OCAP) at Columbia College Chicago. The OCAP develops long-term relationships and formal structures to provide access and opportunity in arts and media education -- supporting the college's central urban mission. OCAP currently works in the area of school partnerships, community partnerships, and cultural partnerships.
''David is the perfect person to lead OCAP as they continue to work on behalf of Columbia in the areas of arts literacy and education,'' says college President Dr. Warrick L. Carter. ''As the foremost provider of innovative higher education and professional practice in the visual, performing, media and communications arts, Columbia is committed to the kind of work David has been doing in the public schools. We will certainly put his vision, expertise and creativity to good use.''
Flatley brings to Columbia vast theoretical and practical experience. Over the past ten years, as the Executive Director of Corchea, Inc -- a consulting firm dedicated to developing and implementing educational and intercultural initiatives designed to improve teacher practice, student achievement and whole-school change in targeted schools -- he has led a wide array of projects in the Chicago area, nationally and internationally. Notably, he designed and led a professional development workshop series in Galway, Ireland; provided strategic planning and training for three federally funded arts integration initiatives in Greenville, South Carolina; and served as an advisor with the Scottish Arts Council and the Scottish Educational Authority as they have begun to replicate throughout Scotland the model of arts integration that Flatley and his team developed. Through the Chicago Teachers' Center -- an academic unit of the College of Education at Northeastern Illinois University -- David created and managed multiple programs that utilize the arts as a vehicle for learning across the curriculum in city schools. He currently serves on the Professional Development Committee for the Americans for the Arts' Arts Education Council.
''I'm eager to join the OCAP team at Columbia College, to help provide leadership as they further develop the programming that has made such a difference in Chicago's youth,'' says Flatley. ''Using the arts as a vehicle to engage kids, whether it be integrated into the curriculum or provided as enhancement after school, has gained tremendous momentum throughout the country. Chicago has been at the forefront of this movement, and I'm delighted that I will be leading one of the cutting edge organizations that have helped forge this new ground.''
Beyond his Master of Arts in Arts Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Flatley holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Organizational Behavior from the University of Illinois-Champaign. He received his practitioner's certification in intercultural communications through the Intercultural Communications Institute in Portland, Oregon.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to open access, opportunity and excellence in higher education, provides innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Founded in 1890 as a communications school for women, Columbia College Chicago was revisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a ''hands-on minds-on'' approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the current leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D. Columbia is aggressively pursuing this mission. Through the diversity of its students and graduates, the school brings a rich vision and multiplicity of voices to American culture.
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