A diverse group of members of the Juilliard community and several outside experts convened in Morse Hall on November 8 to examine the state of Juilliard's current outreach programs and to uncover possible new directions for outreach in the future at the School. Organized in view of Juilliard's approaching centennial year in 2005-06, the retreat was the first step in formulating a long-range plan and mission for outreach programs created over the years as a response to the needs of Juilliard's surrounding community. The 44 participants in the retreat included students, faculty, administrators, outside experts, Music Advancement Program faculty, public school teachers, and foundation representatives. The afternoon offered thought-provoking insights into the fields of educational outreach and the arts in education.

The skills Juilliard students develop through the outreach programs translate into a professional advantage over other artists.

What is outreach? The answer to this question varies widely, but at Juilliard, outreach refers to the ways that Juilliard students share their talents with people outside and inside the school for the purposes of education, healing, and the discovery and nurturing of young talent. As one of the retreat's experts commented, the term "outreach" itself is becoming outdated, as many organizations now prefer the terms "community engagement," "community relationships," or "partnerships." These terms capture the spirit of interaction, often an important feature of some of the more successful outreach programs.

How does Juilliard "reach out" to the surrounding community? As explained by Aaron Flagg, director of educational outreach at Juilliard, the School's current offerings for outreach, some of which have been in existence since 1989, comprise four performance-based programs and three teaching-based programs. The performance-based programs are the Community Service Fellowship, through which Juilliard students perform in health care facilities; PEPS Dance, a program that offers performances at high schools around the city; the Concert Fellowship Program, which prepares elementary school children for chamber music concerts at Juilliard; and Open Stages, a program overseen by Lincoln Center Theater that brings intermediate school students to Juilliard to see a performance of a Shakespeare play. Teaching-based programs at Juilliard comprise the Music Advancement Program, which develops the musical talents of African-American, Latino-American, and Native-American children; the Morse Fellowship, a program that pairs Juilliard students with public school teachers twice a week to introduce children to concepts of music, dance, or drama in a classroom setting; and the Instrumental Music Program, which provides group instrumental lessons to fourth- and fifth-grade students at their schools.

The facilitator of the retreat, Gregory Kandel of Management Consultants for the Arts, led a series of sessions to uncover what the participants viewed as the most valuable motivations behind Juilliard's outreach programs, to discover how the programs resonate with Juillard's institutional mission and to develop ideas for future outreach endeavors.

Mr. Kandel engaged the participants in a provocative discussion about the programs' purposes. Although the primary motivations for creating outreach programs in the late 1980s grew from cutbacks in public school programs and childrens' lack of access to musical instruction, many participants felt that the programs now served perhaps an even more important purpose: the education of Juilliard's own students. Training Juilliard students to teach, preparing them effectively for the profession, exposing Juilliard's students to unusual performance environments, and helping them to prepare for the "everyday world" arose as crucial reasons to maintain and develop outreach at the School. Many participants also felt strongly that Juilliard has a duty to identify talent in young children, provide education to public school students, and share the arts with diverse audiences.

Don’t forget: The application deadline for the Community Service Fellowship program is Friday, December 13. See the Office of Educational Outreach (Room 245) for details.

Aaron Flagg provided some context for Juilliard's current outreach offerings by sharing information culled from an informal telephone survey of outreach programs at a dozen of Juilliard's peer institutions. He reported that the percentage of students involved in outreach elsewhere ranges from 2 percent to more than 60 percent and that some of the programs appear to lack centralized management. At Juilliard the rate of participation is around 19 percent, and Juilliard was found to be similar to its peers in that the outreach programs offer minimal training to the students involved in them, have no curricular requirements to participate, and little research is conducted to measure the success of outreach programs.

Three current students who attended the retreat—pianist Ji-Hea Hong, trombonist Jamie Williams, and flutist Heidi Torvik—shared aspects of their experiences participating in outreach at Juilliard. The principal reason they value outreach is that the act of appearing before and interacting with diverse audiences builds better performing skills, increases confidence in their everyday work at Juilliard, and enables them to share more easily with others the reasons they value the performing arts. Experts in the field of arts in education also commented that the skills Juilliard students develop through the outreach programs are beginning to translate into a professional advantage over other artists, as some symphony orchestras are now requiring newly hired musicians to have experience in outreach.

During "break-out" sessions, the participants of the retreat suggested a number of enhancements and future directions for outreach programs at the School. Among the many suggestions were programs for adults, more aggressive recruitment of Juilliard students into outreach programs, the addition of advanced pedagogy courses for students, a fuller use of technology, making outreach a curricular requirement, bringing parents to Juilliard for special family concerts, an annual "sing-along" choral concert like the Mozart Requiem earlier this year, the undertaking of statistical research to determine the number of students at Juilliard interested in outreach, and more faculty participation in the programs.

President Polisi and Aaron Flagg will be organizing a task force to address the many insightful and productive comments made during the retreat. If you would like to receive a full report from the meeting and/or a copy of the preparatory materials, please contact Christopher Mossey at cmossey@juilliard.edu or by phone at (212) 799-5000, ext. 606.

Christopher J. Mossey is The Campaign for Juilliard's senior officer for special projects.