Pam Korza

From 1996 to 2022, Pam Korza co-directed Animating Democracy with Barbara Schaffer Bacon, a program of Americans for the Arts that worked to inspire, inform, promote, and connect arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change. There she managed a national grant program supporting arts-based civic dialogue projects across the country.  She coordinated related convenings, workshops and presentations on arts and civic engagement for artists, cultural organizations, funders, and at cross-sector gatherings across the country and in China and South Korea. She co-authored and edited numerous books and articles including Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture; Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art & Civic Dialogue as well as the Art & Civic Engagement case study series and practical guides, including Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change, The Continuum of Impact guide, and the Artist-Municipal Partnership Guide (2019).  Pam was co-chair of the Assessing Practices in Public Scholarship research group for Imagining America, a consortium of colleges and universities that advances public scholarship in the humanities, arts, and design and a two-term member of IA’s National Advisory Board. Prior to Animating Democracy, Pam worked for eighteen years with the Arts Extension Service where she coordinated the National Public Art Policy Project in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts. She directed the Boston-based New England Film and Video Festival, coordinated the New England Arts Biennial, and was co-editor of and contributing writer to Fundamentals of Local Arts Management. Pam earned a B.A. in Art History from UMass Amherst.