“To Be American” — Teaching the Role of the Artist in Animating Democracy

This is a story about a group of university students who opened new doors on their world as part of a course in community-based arts collaboration.

In the process they interviewed a Catholic priest who directs a Phoenix soup kitchen; a Navajo medicine man; a white, feminist woman from Arkansas who converted to Islam; a grandmother from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; a black police detective who investigates hate crimes; a biracial Arizona native who is half-Japanese and half-Caucasian and is an attorney for the State, a local imam who came to the U.S. from Jordan and became a citizen several years ago; the director of the local VFW, who is a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars; and a young white student who lives with her parents and has a part-time job as a stripper.

The opinions of these Arizona citizens about what it is to be an American became the raw material for a new collaborative work of art by the students themselves. The process taught me, the teacher, a lot about teaching, and I want to share it.

During the final two weeks of my newly developed Community-based Arts Collaborative course at Arizona State University (ASU), I came across the "Taking Action: Teaching Participatory Community-based Theatre" article in the archives of the API Reading Room. I'm sorry I didn’t discover this wonderfully informative article sooner. I found the different approaches, concerns and goals of professors who had taught community-based theater in a university setting fascinating and I was thrilled to learn about how each class worked and the challenges they faced. I also yearned to read about their community partnerships, how topics of exploration were decided upon, what changes/compromises had to be made due to time limitations and the academic setting, what theatrical forms were experimented with, and the look/layout of the ultimate performance.

Having recently explored these very questions, I offer the following essay as a case study in the hope that others can learn from my experiences (successful or not so) and begin envisioning how such work can be integrated into their own curriculum.

As a community-based theater advocate, it is not surprising that I found great inspiration in the creative research carried out by the Animating Democracy Initiative. I took to heart the information in their 1999 report, "Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue," where they included training and professional development in the section entitled "Opportunities for Advancing Arts-based Civic Dialogue Work." The report called for assistance with “arts training programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels to experiment with enhanced curricula that will enable young artists to integrate development of civic dialogue skills with aesthetic competencies.”

Taking this as my own personal call to action, in the summer of 2003 I developed a special topics course that eventually became CFA 498/598, Community-based Arts Collaborative (CFA), at ASU in the spring of 2004. When developing my curriculum I turned again to the eloquent words of the Animating Democracy report, and the following was my course description:

CFA 598 was a project-based course sponsored directly by Dean Wills of the Herberger College of Fine Arts at ASU, open to upper-class undergraduate and graduate students with experience in visual arts, theater, music and dance. (Note: It was not limited to Fine Arts majors only) It met for one weekly three-hour session on Saturday mornings. Having previously taken other collaborative, project-oriented courses, I knew there was great value in taking the time for students to research and decide upon the subject and format themselves, but I was also aware that this process alone can take a whole semester, leaving no time to actually see the project through. For that reason, I predetermined a rough format (something between a community-based theater piece, a documentary theater performance and an installation theater event) as well as a general topic: what it means to be American. I left both the topic and the format open enough for students to shape the final performance and maintain a sense of ownership. At least this was my hope.

The enrollment flyers billed this as a project-based class, “an exercise in animating democracy” to let the voice of the people be heard. This description appealed to a varied group of seven enrollees with a range of academic and artistic backgrounds. Our semester would be spent developing an interactive documentary performance piece based on interview transcripts from a wide range of members from the Greater Phoenix community and it came to be titled "To Be American: A Work in Progress"[*].

The overarching theme of the piece explored the question: What does it mean to be American? Or, more specifically: What are the prospects and challenges of the American identity? By the virtue of living in this pluralistic society, the answers to these questions are equally diverse.

In the end, the students in the CFA course interviewed an array of individuals from the greater Phoenix community. Our goal was to honor the thoughts and experiences of these fellow community members, and these interview transcripts would provide the meat of our performance. Post-show dialogues would provide a forum for anyone to be heard and help increase understanding among ASU and Greater Phoenix community members through this sharing.

Before the interviews could begin, class time was spent laying a foundation of social and personal identity theory, establishing a common understanding of the elements most common in community-based arts, developing our own project mission statement, and classroom application of ethical interview techniques. We observed all stipulations set forth by ASU’s Internal Review Board, since our research involved human subjects.

As a class we wanted to interrogate/explore how our different worldviews affected the way we all answered the same interview questions and how race, gender, religion, class, age, values, morals and life experiences play a role in one’s thinking about and attitudes towards the American identity. Based on those goals, we collectively crafted seven prompt questions for each student to ask in their interviews. We then worked on finding the interviewees[**], conducting the interviews, transcribing them from audiotapes and sharing our findings with the class.

As one can imagine, these interviews often turned into once-in-a-lifetime, eye-opening experiences for the CFA students, who were able to carry on lengthy discussions with individuals they more than likely would have never met. In the end we amassed 20 transcripts, each averaging 12 pages in length.

As we sat together pouring over the findings of our research, we had some stirring discoveries. Americans are bombarded daily with images and news reports connected with September 11th and the war in Iraq, yet we were still surprised at the extent to which these topics (as well as other previous wars) often dominated the interviews, even though our prompt questions did not specifically mention them. The students were concerned that the whole performance would ultimately be about war. The idea that our national identity seemed so closely intertwined with conflict and war is a fascinating topic to me, but I will save that lengthy discussion for another article.

On the other hand, the thoughts and feelings shared about war and September 11th brought about a wonderful opportunity for the students to experience first-hand the power they have as artists to provide a forum — without value judgments — for some of the perspectives not typically given attention in the media.

The one sociology student in the class was able to bring to the forefront the words of Omar, the local Islamic imam, when he said: “I would like to say one important thing — that if Americans have one reason to go after the terrorists, we have many reasons: because they give bad image to Islam, because what [sic] they have done to us in Washington and New York. So you have one reason, we have two reasons. If you are American, we are Americans, too. We came to this country like anybody else.”

The journalism major was able to do the same for Gerald, a Navajo and an ex-Marine now going to school at ASU, who shared yet another perspective about September 11th that some audience members found shocking: “They were saying it was… the most brutal attack on U.S. soil in the history, in the U.S., and I’m like — a population of 95 million indigenous peoples [died] in this country with colonization, with every people coming over. Ninety percent of them died with disease. ... One person dying is enough, but you know, 3,000 compared to 90 million, you know, I would think they would put that in the books.”

While sharing their transcripts, the students and I found it rather noteworthy that the subjects of homelessness and education came up with quite some frequency when they asked interviewees about their thoughts on the American Dream. Through examining the words of their interviewees on these topics, the students were able to take a close look at some “worlds” they’d never been a part of. And they heard new perspectives from some populations that they have been a part of all along.

Father Bill, the director of a Phoenix soup kitchen had this to say: “For me, the American Dream would be to somehow not acquire, but gather all of these resources and help to share them with others, especially those who are most in need. … I’ve come to see that we in America, a lot of people, do not like those who are weak, who are in need, who have fallen through the cracks. And we would love for those people to disappear or go away.”

Eva, a 43-year-old Chicana mother of five and a lifelong resident of South Phoenix, sees education as a crucial part of the American Dream. “I believe in becoming educated citizens. I believe that we don’t have a right to complain if we don’t take our part, if we don’t fulfill our roles as citizens of the United States. I feel that my role continues in educating people about governance, about civic responsibility, about community service, and it goes beyond, you know, teaching people how to fish. So that people can begin to talk about the adversity that they face in their lives, learn from it and then move forward.”

These students were profoundly touched by some of their interviewees who were so open with feelings of sadness and hope about issues of diversity and tolerance in America.

Through performance, the one male student, a senior undergrad in theater, was able to bring dimension to the words of Jason, a gay, white, Christian, valley youth educator (and a former Eagle Scout). “I would never put my child in a Boy Scout program. And it hurts my heart very much to say that but because of the moral issues that have arisen, I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t experience any specific issues from being gay when I was in Scouts but I wasn’t out and it also was nothing that was ever addressed in that environment. It’s interesting what the Scouts are going through now.”

One of our two theater graduate students expressed Father Bill’s concerns for America’s disregard of the weak, but also express his hope for its future. “Some of these things that I’ve mentioned weigh heavily on my heart. I feel passionate about many of them, about the injustices that I see in this country and in the world. But I do have hope. I have hope in the goodness of people. God is watching over us and is disgusted with us, I think a lot, but also is just kind of moving us towards doing the right thing. It’s taking eons, but I think that’s coming about. There are some serious problems but let’s roll up our sleeves and do it. I have seen it in my life, I have seen it here. I am amazed in the goodness of people and I’m hopeful that we’re moving toward good and toward more diversity, more tolerance, more appreciation of different people and their difficulties…”

Being entrusted with these heartfelt words gave the students a new understanding of the responsibility for honest and ethical representation that comes with the role of artist/social commentator — especially when exploring the documentary form. It also reminded each us of the complex nature of the questions we were asking and how crucial it was to acknowledge that individuals look through multiple lenses of personal and social identity when offering responses. Even though the students didn’t personally agree with all of the opinions expressed in the interviews, they were better able to recognize a context for the disagreeable (to them) sentiments and portray these thoughts with respect and a sense of understanding.

Combing through all of the transcripts together we noticed recurring themes emerging in such a way that the interviewees essentially determined how to best break down the presentation of our findings. We then compiled a script that juxtaposed different pieces of text that provided a platform for the hopes and frustrations, the life experiences, uncertainties and convictions of our 20 interviewees.

During the devising stage, our first challenge came with the fact that there were only seven students and our class met but once a week, putting a great deal of responsibility on a small group of individuals who’d never worked collaboratively before to build a project in a concentrated amount of time. At the start of the semester there were actually 12 students enrolled, but for a class that met on Saturday mornings and had a strict attendance policy, the decrease in numbers was not a surprise. The seven students who remained brought with them a wealth of useful knowledge in areas such as sociology and journalism as well as theater and dance, but this also became a challenge in that there was no common working language in which all of the students were accustomed to communicating, no presentational forms in which all were well versed. This is not a new challenge (opportunity) with community-based work, which so often brings together diverse individuals with a range of experience but it is a challenge nonetheless. This led us to question which performance techniques could be artistically fulfilling for all and still honor the words of our interviewees in a respectful manner.

We had offered our trust to our interviewees and we all felt highly conscious of how we framed their thoughts and experiences so as not to criticize or comment on them in any way. Since respecting each individual’s right to freedom of speech proved the primary focus of this project we made concerted efforts to keep our ideologies, morals and political beliefs in check as we pieced together a performance using the transcribed words of our interviewees that included rather delicate topics. Well aware that being completely objective in a project such as this one was simply not possible, maintaining an acute awareness of how our beliefs and morals played into our decision-making processes and presentation was of great importance.

At times the students saw these goals as restrictions that limited the creative process of devising our performance, and I must admit I, too, felt that way at times. Often in class, we found that the creative ideas we experimented with walked a fine line and could be construed as taking sides on an issue or passing judgment on someone’s opinion if used in the final performance. In work such as this, it always helps to remind myself of an important lesson I learned from theater artist Michael Rohd, who shared that when we are given a box to work within, we need to look for the ways in which the parameters we are given can encourage us to be even more inventive than if they weren’t there at all. In the end, we came to the conclusion that since the project was about letting people’s voices be heard, no matter what the opinion, the emphasis should be on the words and ideas expressed and not theatrically skillful interpretations of those words. We just had to work a bit harder to find the moments where the more creative interactions could come in to play.

The time limitations alone made it clear that an installation-based piece with simultaneous performances would work well because it would not require us to develop a plot-driven script (too time-consuming) and it would allow us to utilize much more material. Ultimately the performance encompassed three different listening stations to which audience members traveled around the perimeter of the room. At each station the audience could listen to the students as they expressed the thoughts of their interviewees on each theme as they (the audience) chose. The listening stations were situated in rather close proximity to one another so as to provide enough of space for audience members to move about while still maintaining a sense of intimacy.

Each of the three stations had two or three performers sitting in a household chair with a household lamp between them and a music stand where performers read from their script. Once again, since emphasis was to be on the words of our interviewees and not the acting prowess of the students, we chose to have them read their pieces of transcript. This also allowed us to arrange and rearrange the text into thematic categories to create a natural flow right up until the first performance.

As the instructor of the course, I’ll also add that I was very conscious of our limited rehearsal time and I did not want to see novice (or even experienced) college actors doing ill-prepared imitations or caricatures of the individuals they interviewed. Student actors simply read alternating transcript selections from their own two or three interviewees. They used vocal inflections and body language, along with one very basic costume piece or prop to signify which “character” was speaking. These few basic things were all we needed to differentiate interviewees and create a purposeful sense of separation between interviewee and “actor."

Using music or choral-speak segments, the actors occasionally came to the center of the space or climbed onto a long black box in front of an enormous (20 x 15 foot!) American flag to draw attention to some of the more striking sections of the script such as September 11th, Americanization, Media influence, etc.

Apart from the choral and music sections, which were given focus with red and blue lighting, the bulk of the performance left audience members responsible for creating their own experience by traveling to the different listening stations and choosing what he or she listened to and if he or she listened. Each audience member chose whether they wanted to stay put and listen to one or two individual’s thoughts for the whole performance or whether they wanted to travel around the space to hear a sampling of everything. Individuals chose whether to listen to voices of those who led lives or held opinions similar to their own or to seek out the voices and opinions they hadn’t heard before.

For the most part, nothing was repeated, so if you didn’t hear a section of text the first time, you didn’t hear it at all. It was certainly “cacophonous," as one audience member described it in the post-show dialogue. Another shared that he had a headache when it was all over from listening to so many voices at once. For the most part however, audience members (including the man with the headache) seemed to appreciate the format. Once the attendees warmed to the format of this performance, they really seemed to buy into it. Some people found the “vociferous” design very indicative of our pluralistic American society, while others expressed an appreciation for the opportunity to make their own choices — another of the coveted freedoms enjoyed in the U.S.

Now that this pilot project has come to a close and I assess the experience, I find multiple perspectives to consider with regard to the impact the project had and whether or not I “achieved” my goals as instructor of this new class. There’s the impact on the audience members and the ASU and Greater Phoenix communities, the impact on the interviewees — especially those who attended the performance — and the impact on the students. By and large, the audiences for our three performances were mainly those affiliated with ASU, interviewees and their friends, family members of the students, with only a sprinkling of non-ASU-affiliated community members who came because our advertisements piqued their interest. Ideally I would have preferred an equal number of ASU and non-ASU-affiliated performance-goers so that it could indeed have been a true gathering of diverse publics, but for that to happen the performances should have been in off-campus venues — neutral territory. Due to the complexities inherent to a new endeavor like this, I wasn’t able to make this happen, but it surely will be a point of emphasis the next time around.

As for the impact on the "To Be American" attendees, the post-show dialogues gave the students and me a wonderful window into what was truly appreciated and/or gained from participating in this event. Creating and presenting this project opened up a dialogue around a number of very sensitive topics (patriotism, Americanization, war, race and tolerance, etc.) between students, faculty and staff from an array of departments who would never have come to a common space to discuss such matters if not for this performance.

Many audience members shared that they had never really thought about what it meant to be American and that attending this "Work in Progress" was unlike anything they had ever participated in before and they will likely continue to think about and have an awareness of our conversations for a long time to follow. Knowing the words shared in the performance came from their own neighbors, teachers, police officers and pastors made it far more difficult for audience members to discredit what was being said.

One professor who attended shared in the post-show dialogue that even though she profoundly disagreed with one particular interviewee, she felt that the performance was framed in such a way that she was compelled to listen instead of walk away. I viewed that as a compliment of the highest magnitude because it was a sign that people were truly engaged and were beginning to listen to others in ways they hadn’t before this performance. It was also a very good sign that the majority of the audience at all three performances not only stayed for the talkback session, but also even afterward to speak with the actors, each other and myself. It was a strong acknowledgement that this is indeed an important topic involving many complexities that needs to be further explored with our fellow community members at Arizona State University and beyond.

As for the impact on the Greater Phoenix community, I was happy for the small steps we made, but of course there is far more to be done to really make an impact. First and foremost, I know now how crucial it is to have partnerships with individuals and organizations outside the university if the project hopes to make any truly genuine community-bridging connections.

I am deeply grateful for the support we received (financial, organizational and otherwise) from our three ASU sponsors: the Intergroup Relations Center, the Herberger College of Fine Arts Community Programs Office, and the Campus Environment Team, who were all instrumental in seeing this project onto its feet. It goes without saying however, that if you want a real connection to happen with community members then it is essential to seek out and foster partnerships with community organizations from start to finish — not just university partnerships and not just in the end of the project when you’re looking for audience members.

Even though this was not what most would call a “true” or traditional community-based theater piece, I still aspire for the community members to have the sense of ownership that can be felt when they know a performance is of, by and for them. Since the experiences I provide for the students enrolled in the class must also take priority I have an even better understanding now of just how important it is that I continue striving to find a sense of balance where commitment from both sides is equally strong — as is the feeling of reward and ownership.

The icing on the cake for this whole experience was the responses we received from the interviewees who attended the performance. After the performances were over and before my final session with the students enrolled in CFA 598, I e-mailed the six interviewees who had attended to thank them for coming and ask them if they had any comments they wanted me to share with the students. Every one of them sent back a very positive response and in one way or another they all expressed apprehensions about coming, and discomfort with the idea of seeing someone else “speak their thoughts” on the stage, but they also all assured me that they were very glad they came.

One interviewee found the experience rather validating; he e-mailed, “It was strange to hear my words coming from someone else's mouth! But that really gave me the sense that my opinions are just as good as someone else's.” Another interviewee, who brought 13 of her family members to see the performance responded that she “felt honored,” to be a part of this project and that it was an opportunity that she and her family "would never forget”. Having their efforts so genuinely appreciated in this way was a wonderfully rewarding testimony for the class to the power of this type of work.

As for the students enrolled in the Community-based Arts Collaborative course, I think they had a very positive experience as well. In their roles as community-based artists/social commentators for this project, the students were given the opportunity to use their art to lead by example and respectfully acknowledge the right each individual has to his or her own opinions, thoughts and experiences, regardless of gender, race, religion, age or other social status. Exploring this particular approach to the artist/social commentator role was a rare opportunity that most of the students had not truly explored before, and those who had were excited to have had a hands-on opportunity to finally apply the theories they had been reading about. In their final reflection papers they all expressed great appreciation for their newfound roles.

I found great encouragement in the response from this student, as it seems that our project gave the students opportunities to expand themselves not only as artists but also as open-minded human beings and community members.

Admittedly, the devising process ran short on time since so many of our class sessions together were spent on interview preparation, sharing materials and scripting. While I do think that that was time well spent, I also know that some students felt their creative skills weren’t used as much as they could have been. Since we strayed away from the more interpretive forms for fear of commenting on the interviewees, the one dance student did not get to use her dance and choreography skills as much as we all would have liked, and the more skilled actors did not get to take on acting roles in a manner to which they were accustomed.

Given that this was a brand-new project developed in the context of a brand-new class that met once a week, that it was not pre-scripted but rather developed through collaboration, and that it was not a typical production that rehearses five or six days a week with a budget and a production team, some of the students’ expectations simply couldn’t be met. However, in the end, when they reflected back on the whole experience, I do think they understood why certain compromises had to happen and were happy for the new experience this project exposed them to.

Additionally, the collaborative nature of this project also was an excellent lesson in accountability and small group communication for us all and each student expressed in his or her final reflections that because we were such a small ensemble, every absence or missed assignment, every contribution of effort was clearly felt by the whole group.

In the end, when I ponder whether this experience built upon the students’ visions of what the arts can do and be and provided them with some significant, hands-on experience, I say yes — absolutely. And when I ask myself if there are things I could do differently and better next time from having had this experience — I can also confidently say yes. Embarking on new endeavors such as the Community-based Arts Collaborative course and the "To Be American" pilot project, I was well aware from the beginning that there were bound to be mistakes and discoveries of things that could have been done better. I only hoped that the students could be patient with these things and learn from them right along with me and for the most part, I truly think they did. Many, if not all of these things-to-be-improved-upon can only be discovered with time, experience and careful negotiation — I will address three of these more specifically.

First, if I am to continue predetermining the topic and performance format in order to give the project a head start in our limited amount of class time together, then I will also need to continue exploring ways to help students establish a sense of ownership for the topic and the work.

Second, when working with emergent curriculum where there is always a certain element of “making it up as you go along” to accommodate for the needs of the students and the project, I must continue to seek fair and democratic ways to offer a syllabus (a contract) that allows some flexibility but also lets the students know as extensively as possible, what is expected of them from the very beginning. With a course such as this, open to students from so many different backgrounds, students must be aware of the time commitments and workloads expected of them from the very beginning. It can be very damaging for the whole group if students drop out a few weeks into the course because they can’t handle the commitment.

Third, with regards to the performance, if we are to continue using the more installation-based format (of which I am a fan), then as the instructor/facilitator I must pursue new ways of establishing and maintaining dramatic tension to keep audience members engaged throughout.

Finally, as I reflect on these three lessons (and the numerous others) I realize how important it is that I be comfortable with the fact that there will be times where I will be learning about new things right along with the students. In order to really serve the project, I will need to let the students, who all come from diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise, be my teachers. It takes a certain amount of willingness to let go of the traditional classroom hierarchy that we are all accustomed to, but in this type of collaborative work this approach is essential.

I went into this course looking at it as a pilot project, having the assurance that I could create a meaningful artistic and educational opportunity for the students to connect with the Greater Phoenix community while also being able to experiment with emergent curriculum and different forms of performance. Having now taught this course, I have confirmed my belief that arts-based civic dialogue does/should indeed have a place in arts training programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level. In addition to exposing students to new ways of exploring the role of artist as social commentator, courses in this manner give student artists invaluable experience with collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts. The ensemble nature of the work teaches discipline and accountability, opens students up to new ways of experimenting with form, and gives them invaluable opportunities to apply group communication skills.

Best of all, this type of project-based course work also provides an opportunity for students and teachers to look beyond our borders and begin making meaningful connections with the community we live in. We so often become completely absorbed in the worlds of our campuses. When we ask our own neighbors what it means to be American, it also allows us to expand our vision of the social, political and cultural complexities of our larger environment.

Kate Collins is an Arizona-based artist, activist and educator and a 2002 graduate of Arizona State University’s MFA in Theatre for Youth program. Collins is a faculty associate in the Herberger College of Fine Arts at ASU. In addition to her collaborative ensemble work, she has toured with her autobiographical performance, "I Came to Live Out Loud." In summer 2004, she will participate in the inaugural Cornerstone Institute, in Lost Hills, California.

*For the sake of this project, the term “American” was used in reference to individuals who were born/raised in the United States or have lived here for a significant amount of time. The nomenclature is a much debated topic, since this usage excludes others who are from the Americas (and it was a topic brought up a numerous times by interviewees and in the post-show talkback), but that is beyond the scope of this particular essay. [return]

**Primarily, our interviewees were located with the assistance of one of the project co-sponsors, the ASU Intergroup Relations Center (IRC), which is especially well connected with a diverse collection of organizations throughout the Greater Phoenix Area. My preference was that the interviewees be one or two degrees from somebody known by the IRC, the students or myself so that I could assure a certain degree of safety. As the instructor of this course, I felt very responsible for making sure the students were never put into an unsafe position, since they were meeting with individuals that both they and I did not know in places they had often never been before — offices, diners, libraries, homes, etc. For the sake of the research gathered, I preferred that the students interview people they did not already know well because high-level conversations with such people would make it difficult to use their transcriptions in performance. Additionally, I tried to have students interview individuals of different social-identity groups than themselves for if they were of the same social groupings it would have been easier for students to unconsciously infer their own experiences into the stories being told by the interviewee. As an added precaution and also to provide the new interviewers with some added support and give each student more experience in the interview setting, the students were all required to partner with a classmate when they went on interviews. One student was the lead interviewer, while the other was in charge of operating the tape recorder, taking notes on possible follow-up questions, and serving as an all-around back-up to their partner. [return]

Editor's note: In this story, the quotes of interviewees were slightly edited by CAN for clarity, with approval from the author

Home

About CAN

APInews

Reading Room

Resources

Forums

Site Map

What's New

Search Site

“To Be American” — Teaching the Role of the Artist in Animating Democracy

Comments

Home About CAN Welcome About CAN Community Arts 101 Contact Us APInews APInews Conferences/Events Reading Room Essays Special Projects Bridge Conversations Making Exact Change The CAN Report The Citizen Artist Performing Communities Everybody Say Hallelujah Connecting Californians Spirit of the Northwest The ROOTS Reader Links Page Resources Bookstore CANuniversity Community Arts 101 Community Arts Perspectives Cross-Sector Resources Places to Study Studies and Statistics Weblogs CANblog Guest Blogs CAN Blognet CANtv Forums Forums Home Conversations Opportunities Special Conversations Site Map What's New Search Site