Gioia Leaves NEA After Changing Debate Over Arts Funding

In the midst of a deeply contentious election, in which the major parties are divided on almost all of the issues, from abortion to health care to Iraq, one old rallying cry — that of the so-called culture wars — has hardly been heard at all.That one no longer hears Republican candidates calling for the abolition of the National Endowment for the Arts is a credit to the effectiveness of the NEA’s chairman since 2003, the poet Dana Gioia, in changing the terms of the debate around government funding for the arts.Mr. Gioia will announce Friday that he plans to resign in January to return to writing. He will also take a part-time position at the Aspen Institute, as the first director of the Harman-Eisner Program in the Arts.Mr. Gioia leaves the NEA considerably strengthened. For fiscal year 2008, it received a budget increase of $20 million, the largest dollar increase in NEA funding in 29 years. A bill that is currently in the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Interior Appropriations would give the NEA another $15 million increase for fiscal year 2009.“We have built a new national consensus about the importance of public support of the arts and arts education, and we did it by emphasizing artistic excellence, educational impact, and the democratic importance” of arts funding, Mr. Gioia said in an interview.Among the programs Mr. Gioia initiated are Shakespeare in American Communities, a program that funds professional theater companies to tour Shakespeare productions in schools; the Big Read, which encourages communities to read and discuss one of 26 selected works of American and world literature; NEA Jazz Masters, which includes both live performances and educational resources about jazz; Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest for high school students, and Operation Homecoming, which provides writing workshops for troops and their spouses.During Mr. Gioia’s tenure, the NEA has also produced several major research reports, including “Reading at Risk” (2004), which found dramatic declines in adult reading of literature; “The Arts and Civic Engagement” (2006), which showed that people who participate in the arts also participate in other civic activities, and “Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005” (2008), a nationwide look at artists’ demographic and employment patterns.Under Mr. Gioia, the NEA has also dramatically broadened the geographic impact of its funding through an initiative called Challenge America, which awards grants to small- and midsize organizations that bring art to underserved populations. Previously, in an average year, direct grants reached only three-quarters of the country, as measured by congressional district. Since 2005, grants have reached at least one organization in every congressional district.“I can go into a congressman’s office and ask him to name any high school in his district, and we’ve been there,” Mr. Gioia said. “That changes the conversation.”The NEA’s grants are largely one-to-one matching grants — that is, they require that the recipient get the same amount of funding from a private source, as well.“The NEA does not subsidize the arts: We give the grants that make a project possible,” Mr. Gioia said, offering what is clearly a finely honed argument. “If we give [our] grant, it tells other potential funders that on a national basis this project was selected as of the highest quality.” An organization can go to a potential funding source and say, “‘[I]f you don’t match this we’ll lose it,'” Mr. Gioia said. “It gives it a level of urgency. And that’s the leverage that makes the American system, which is largely privately funded, work better.”Mr. Gioia said that while he could easily continue working in Washington, he feels a pressing need to return to writing. “If I don’t return to poetry soon, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to bring the energy and stamina that one needs to do it seriously,” he said.Asked what lies ahead for the NEA after he leaves, and what its major challenges and opportunities are, Mr. Gioia said that the agency should expand its education programs directed at elementary school students and focus more on international cultural exchanges.Toward that end, the NEA recently put out a request for proposals from institutions to host a new NEA arts-journalism institute focused on the visual arts. The NEA already sponsors arts-journalism institutes focused on dance, theater, and classical music. The new institute, on which the NEA is collaborating with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will focus on American art from the last 150 years. Half of the participants will be American journalists, and half will be journalists from the Middle East, the Far East, and North Africa.“It will create a second level of dialogue,” Mr. Gioia said.

Gioia Leaves NEA After Changing Debate Over Arts Funding

Gioia Leaves NEA After Changing Debate Over Arts Funding

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