The Artmaker as Active Agent: Six Portraits

By Susan Monagan

Biographical Sketch

Susan is engaged in several research projects through Cornell University that focus on using art in community and economic development and range in activity from providing technical assistance to communities like Spencer in Tioga County to creating a Main Streets resource guide to be used by Main Streets organizations across the state. She has been an active partner in the designing and implementing of New York Creative Economy initiatives under the auspices of a USDA Hatch grant.

Susan is a committee member of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County's Family and Community Development and Strategic Planning Committees.

Since 1992, Susan has been a public speaking coach. She has concentrated her clients within the academic community, developing training to coordinate with on-campus leadership programs. Her clients include Dartmouth College and, especially, Rutgers University and its Institute for Women's Leadership. Susan holds a B.A. in English from Dartmouth and completed study at Trinity Repertory Conservatory where she studied acting, playwriting, and directing and developed strategies for effective performance.

Susan is currently Manager of Audience Development and Special Projects in the Department of Theatre Arts at Ithaca College.

Dedication

This work is dedicated to my sons Cashel Byron Stewart and Charles Wilde Stewart whose curiosity, powers of observation, persistence and ability to ask great questions teach me the secrets of life-long learning.

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the help of Professor Paula Horrigan and Professor Scott Peters in bringing the germ of this idea to fruition. They continue to inspire me with their diligence and optimism.

I am deeply indebted to my family, without whom this foray into academia in middle age would have been impossible.

Finally, the brilliance, humor and deep compassion of the profile subjects made two years of mining their lives and words a great pleasure and greater study. I am forever changed through knowing them.

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