The Dawson Research Internship

Past Presentations 2006 How We Make Meaning 2007 Professional Presenters and the Amateur Arts 2008 Learning to Lead: Where and How Do Arts Professionals Extend Their Knowledge and Advance Their Craft? 2009 Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer Translated 2010 Arts, Access, and the Bridges in Between 2011 Possible Futures, 2021: Scenarios for Perorming Arts Presenting About the Initiative In 1996, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters created the William Dawson Education Endowment to celebrate and honor Bill Dawson, the association's Executive Director from 1972 to 1986. Bill's friends and colleagues sought to establish a fund that would help educate a new generation of arts leaders, incorporating Bill's belief in lifelong learning with his professional legacy of the successful partnership between higher education and the administration of the arts. The result is the William Dawson Research Internship. This research program, inaugurated in 2005, supports an annual research study by selected graduate students in the Bolz Center for Arts Administration on current trends facing the presenting field. The results of this study is presented annually at the Arts Presenters national Members Conference in New York City. The project is a close collaboration of Arts Presenters and the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, where Bill Dawson also played a formative and passionate role.

Connecting Students and Professionals,
Theory and Practice
Each year since 2005, the William Dawson Research Internship of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters has commissioned a group of Bolz Center graduate students to research, prepare, and present a national conference session on an emerging trend, issue, or question facing performing arts practitioners.

Our 2012 topic explores an essential issue for the future of the field, and the health of the performing arts profession.

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Power, Influence, and Performing Arts
Association of Performing Arts Presenters Annual Conference
Sunday, January 8, 2012, 9:00-11:00 AM
Hilton New York, Concourse A

Performing arts presenting and producing organizations often wish they were 'at the table' for important public decisions and civic issues in the arts and beyond. But what attributes or actions might secure them that seat of influence in their communities, and what strategies would increase that influence over time? Join a group of Bolz Center for Arts Administration students from the Wisconsin School of Business for an exploration of power and influence in politics and public decision-making. The presentation will draw insight from political science, social movements, and for-profit corporate strategy. The resulting discussion will connect those dots to professional practice in the performing arts. Bring your strategies and ideas to this year's iteration of the William Dawson Research Initiative, and leave with essential tools to build your base back home. Moderator: Andrew Taylor, Director, Bolz Center for Arts Administration.

Project Team
Laura Blegen, Danielle Boyke, Marcella Dover, Brian Hinrichs, Andrew Maxfield, Joanna Simpson
Advisor, Andrew Taylor, Director, Bolz Center for Arts Administration

Blegen	Boyke	Dover
Hinrichs	Maxfield	Simpson
Taylor