For Women’s History Month, the Arts Extension Service invited former AES Director Shirley Sneve to tell her story of her time at AES and her work as a journalist working with Vision Maker Media and the ICT Newscast broadcast on the PBS WORLD channel.
It was June 24, 2001, when my family arrived in Massachusetts. As a life-long citizen of South Dakota and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, it was culture shock. Our new neighbors soon made us feel at home, but nothing prepared us for September 11, when terrorists hijacked four airliners, crashing into the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon, and rural Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost.
My mother told me to come home. You see, the distance between Amherst and New York City, is about the same as Sioux Falls and Pierre, South Dakota - only halfway across the state. It’s scary stuff when your daughter is 1,700 miles away.
We all pivoted towards America’s shared grief. For the Arts Extension Service (AES), the arts were at the center of healing and community building.
As it still does to this day, AES had a worldwide reputation for arts management training. Craig Dreeszen was its director when he hired me to succeed him. I met him and Barbara Shaffer Bacon in South Dakota when Janet Brown, Executive Director of South Dakotans for the Arts, hired AES to develop a technical assistance program based on community cultural planning.
The Arts Extension Service has been an excellent resource for nonprofit organizations for decades. I was honored to lead the organization from 2001 to 2004. It has continued to evolve, but at the same time it remains true to its core values and vision of its founders.
It provides high quality Arts Management education to artists, nonprofit professionals, and UMass Amherst students on campus and online. As a national arts service organization, AES is a bridge between the UMass Amherst campus and the national arts sector.
The model of developing arts in large and small communities comes from Robert E. Gard, who joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin (UW-Madison) in 1945 and drew inspiration from the “Wisconsin Idea” created by Progressive Governor Robert M. LaFollette and UW-Madison President Charles Van Hise. The Wisconsin Idea directed the University to offer the best ideas in all fields to the service of the communities of Wisconsin and encouraged University faculty and extension outreach personnel to help fulfill the talents of everyone in the state - whether they could get to the campus or not. Gard named his program the Wisconsin Idea Theatre, a cultural program for the whole state, which included providing access to the finest of arts to all the people and encouraging citizens to write about things that mattered to them.
In 1967 Gard established the functional area of Arts Development in the College of Agriculture under University Extension and remained a specialist in the arts in smaller communities and rural areas. The University Extension Service model continues to promote inclusion through its work. From 4H to publications and programs that encourage healthy land and people, it’s a valuable service to many, primarily rural, families.
In my home state, South Dakota State University Extension provides research-based education in agriculture, youth development (4-H), and community health. Its presence on the state’s nine Indian reservations is strong and makes communities better.
That model made perfect sense to me as I became familiar with AES and its community development projects which I participated in with the South Dakota Arts Council.
I am grateful for my three years in Massachusetts, but as a true mid-westerner I was equally grateful to return. I put my arts management skills into practice as I accepted a position with Native American Public Telecommunications (now Vision Maker Media), the largest funder of PBS documentaries by and about American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Reflecting on my time with AES, I worked with many incredible artists and arts organizations through workshops for artists and business, marketing, and community development. I was especially pleased to work with the Western Massachusetts Arts Alliance which promoted cultural tourism in the area and planning which put the arts at the center of community.
Online learning was new then, but AES attracted students from all over the world! These days, classes are far more interactive and just as useful. While the curriculum focuses on arts organization, this knowledge is entirely transferable to good management in any field.
During my tenure there, we issued an updated edition of “The Fundamentals of Arts Management.” It remains my go-to resource as I continue to advise and serve on nonprofit boards, including the Arts Extension Institute, which has served as an advisory group in helping staff navigate changing times at the university and in the field. Its members are past leaders and faculty of AES.
My career is now full circle. I have returned to journalism and have had the privilege of interviewing many female leaders. These include Melanie Benjamin, who led the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota through immense change and challenge. Her solid leadership transcended politics to lead efforts in language revitalization, land restoration, and sovereignty. Marique Moss, who owns an arts business with her husband, and published books for young readers that focus on heritage, which she describes as Afro-Indigenous. (See this ICT Newscast broadcast on the PBS WORLD channel) Melissa Payne, the Freedmen Liaison for the Cherokee Tribe of Oklahoma, who carries on the work of her ancestors, who were African American slaves owned by Cherokee people. With Miles Morriseau, I interviewed Crystal Shawanda, an amazing Cree singer, who was nominated for the Juno Award for Blues Album of the Year.
Among these incredible women tribal leaders, I interviewed my mother, historian and author Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve. At age 93, she continues to write, play piano, and teach a water class. One of the things she said in the interview was that she chose education for a profession because opportunities for young girls on the Rosebud Indian Reservation were limited. Turns out, she wanted to be an attorney!
And now my daughters make me proud - each living life in their own way and terms. Joan works for AARP and gives me advice on growing old. Bonita, a cosmetologist, gives me hair advice. I go to my granddaughter Freya for makeup advice.
I’m grateful that I get to tell the stories of these generations of strong female leaders both on television and online. Look us up at ictnews.org.
