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COLLABORATION FIRSTA Design + Humanities Lab

Report on Scheinfeldt Catalyst Residency | June 8-12, 2015

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Catalyzing Newport is made possible with the generous support of

Van Beuren Charitable Foundation

Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

Catalyzing Newport Steering Committee

International Tennis Hall of Fame

Newport Art Museum

Newport Restoration Foundation

The Preservation Society of Newport County

Redwood Library & Athenaeum

Rhode Island Historical Society

Salve Regina University

Catalyst Tom Scheinfeldt visited Newport in June 2015. The following report summarizes his experiences, charts the outcomes of his residency, and focuses on the results of the Design + Humanities lab he facilitated with the local action team.

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CATALYZING NEWPORT

DESIGN + HUMANITIES LAB: COLLABORATION FIRST

Expertise: Catalyst Tom Scheinfeldt PhD

Impact Areas: Digital Culture, Cultural Entrepreneurship

Immersion

Activities

Local Action Team

Results

Essay: Design + Humanities

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Table of Contents

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Imagine a city where…

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thought leaders across diverse fields convene and facilitate dialogues to explore important questions and address societal challenges.

If the people of Rhode Island conclude that ‘free for all’

individualism must give way to more cooperation, more

balance and sharing, more planning in economic, political,

and social affairs, the state may be on the brink of a major shift

in its patterns of thought and behavior. In that breakthrough

may be Rhode Island's, and the nation's, real ‘Hope.’

bill mcloughlin Rhode Island: A History, 1986

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Seed Grants

expertise

DIGITAL CULTURE

CULTURALENTREPRENEURSHIP

DIVERSITY &PROSPERITY

DAY 1

impact areas

activities

immersion LOCAL ACTION TEAMSTEERING COMMITTEE

DAY 7

Experiments Connections

THE CHALLENGE

THE RESULTS

VISTING CATALYST

Lectures & Forums for Public

One-on-one Meetings

ToursWorkshops with Local

Action Team

Experiments Connections

URBAN GROWTH & ECONOMY

Seed Grants

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WHAT IS CATALYZING NEWPORT?

Catalyzing Newport is an initiative to provoke ideas, connections and outcomes to support a more resilient and prosperous Newport. Based on the core belief that history matters for Newport now, Catalyzing Newport’s network of leaders are developing innovative and substantive ways to engage with the city’s storied places and ideas in order to achieve significant outcomes. These include:

– the City will be better able to make PROGRESS on key challenges

– the organizations dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, interpreting Newport’s history will be more RESILIENT

– Newport and Rhode Island’s civic identity will be STRONGER.

At the heart of Catalyzing Newport is a steering committee of the leaders of seven historical, cultural, and educational organizations working together to create a shared vision of Newport. The initiative’s catalyst model draws on the extensive experience, national and international networks, and creative excellence of established experts (known as “catalysts”) to engage Newport communities in meaningful exchanges. Each visiting catalyst is paired with a team of local practitioners (known as the “local action team”). The local action team is devised specifically for each residency and works intensively with their catalyst to design an experiment which they prototype in Newport after the catalyst leaves.

Visiting catalysts are selected based on their expertise related to Catalyzing Newport’s Impact Areas: Cultural Entrepreneurship, Diversity & Prosperity, Urban Growth & Economy, and Digital Culture. Identified by the steering committee as the main collaborative opportunities among Newport’s historical and cultural institutions, these impact areas focus the initiative’s planning and activities. Making progress in these areas requires long-term visioning, discovery, and experimentation, as well as cross-sector and intra-organization relationship building. We recognize that Catalyzing Newport is just one of many efforts focused on issues of long-term sustainability and resiliency in Newport. Together, we imagine a Newport whose future is rich in culture, civic life, and economic opportunities.

Catalyzing Newport has been

incredibly valuable. It is critical

for us to know what everyone else

is doing, and this is the only forum

where this is occurring.

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trudy coxe, President and CEO The Preservation Society of Newport County

Catalyzing Newport

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Design + Humanities Lab

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Touba Ghadessi @ToubaGhadessi: Real knowledge is

interdisciplinary knowledge. Real knowledge calls on us

to collaborate. Yes. @foundhistory @rihumanities

@CatalyzingNwpt

2015/06/09

Collaboration First

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Expertise

Visiting Catalyst

TOM SCHEINFELDT, PhD | University of Connecticut

Tom Scheinfeldt, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of Digital Humanities in the Digital Media Center at the University of Connecticut. He brings more than a decade of leadership in digital humanities research and management. Scheinfeldt has directed several award-winning digital humanities projects, including THATCamp, Omeka, and the September 11 Digital Archive. With a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and master’s and doctoral degrees from Oxford, Scheinfeldt has written and lectured extensively about the history of museums and the role of history in culture. Scheinfeldt is a recent contributor to Debates in Digital Humanities (University of Minnesota Press) and co-editor of Hacking the Academy (University of Michigan Press). He blogs about digital humanities and the business of digital humanities at Found History and co-hosts the Digital Campus podcast with his colleagues.

Scheinfeldt was selected as a catalyst because of his extensive experience and innovations with public history and digitization efforts. As a “happy accident,” we discovered along the way that Scheinfeldt’s newest initiatives are centered on collaboration and redesigning the role of public historians in community problem solving. As much as we needed Scheinfeldt’s expertise, he was also interested in Catalyzing Newport’s developing model and its efforts to put the city’s renowned historical organizations, leaders, and cultural assets at the forefront of community conversations about Newport’s development and prosperity.

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THE THEME | Collaboration First

In June 2015, Scheinfeldt visited Newport, RI to explore a pressing and emerging theme in the cultural sector – Collaboration First. Using this theme as a guide, Scheinfeldt engaged various audiences during his week-long residency, including Catalyzing Newport’s steering committee in one-on-one meetings; members of the local action team in an intensive two-day workshop; a team of collections and archival colleagues implementing Newportal (a collaborative, cross-institution digital collections tool); and members of the general public at a lecture held at Salve Regina’s Ochre Court. These conversations explored ideas and options for moving the dial on a local challenge: How can we work together to increase scholarly and public access to Newport’s renowned and sometimes hidden historical assets and collections?

THE CHALLENGE

Scheinfeldt’s residency had a specific goal. He was charged with facilitating a workshop with the local action team that would result in the creation of a new request for proposals, or RFP, to inspire scholarly engagement with Newport across a variety of themes and challenges. The resulting RFP, (re)Newport (see page 23), was born out of the local action team’s Design + Humanities workshop with Scheinfeldt, but it was also informed by conversations and ideas generated throughout the week.

Impact Areas

Sustaining and growing cultural communities in a hyper-connect-ed world. An examination of how data in our collections is preserved, stewarded, shared, used, and po-tentially monetized.

Leveraging the best cultural prac-titioners and innovators to explore how the cultural sector can use entrepreneurial approaches to support and help transform commu-nities and to produce new models of economic and social impact.

DIGITAL CULTURE

CULTURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

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After listening to the

Newportal presentation, my

staff and I decided to hold

off on investigating a new

digital archive solution for

the Tennis Hall of Fame’s

collections; instead, we will

plan to join Newportal.

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douglas stark, Museum Director Tennis Hall of Fame

SETTING IN MOTION NEW IDEASA new Ethos | Collaboration First!

In his lecture titled “Collaboration First,” Scheinfeldt laid out a vision where collaboration is a means to saving resources and finding efficiencies toward larger goals. Collaboration is often not thought about until an idea or project is fully formed. Partners are typically brought in at the end of the brainstorming phase to assist with implementation. However, Scheinfeldt’s work and research questions this paradigm and posits that scholars and organizations should seek collaborative partners in the exploration and discovery phase of their project development. This allows for more authentic collaboration as partners form relationships necessary to address larger challenges.

Engaging in early collaboration can be difficult for the parties involved for several reasons: it relinquishes control; it is riskier because the outcomes are unknown; it requires more time investment; and it requires a lot of trust. For these reasons, many organizations continue to work in silos. So why do it? Why change practice when it’s fraught with difficulties and risk?

There are no shortcuts to solving community and societal issues. Catalyzing Newport values the “collaboration first” ethos, and in fact, Scheinfeldt’s lecture reaffirmed our own process. No one organization, foundation or visionary can solve our grand challenges alone. Even operating at a smaller scale, no one organization has the assets and resources to effectively interpret our complex, interconnected, and interdisciplinary stories. We need collaborators from all sectors, disciplines, staffing ranks, etc. to make sense of the world around us – and to help us engage new audiences and create new opportunities for humanities scholarship.

Activities

Immersion

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SHAWN BADGLEY | Rhode Island Historical Society

Shawn is the Communications & Digital Outreach Coordinator at the Rhode Island Historical Society, where he applies his experience in media, politics, and content marketing to cultivate new audiences and engage longtime members.

MELISSA BARKER | City of Newport

Melissa is GIS Coordinator in Newport’s Department of Civic Investment. Previously, Melissa worked on restoration projects around the US as a materials conservator and artist prior to returning to Aquidneck Island. Melissa received a BS in Historic Preservation from Roger Williams University’s School of Architecture in 2001, with a minor in History.

MARKUS BERGER | Rhode Island School of Design

Markus is the Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Interior Architecture. He co-founded and co-edits Int|AR, the Journal on Interventions and Adaptive Reuse at RISD, that encompasses issues of preservation, conservation, alteration, and interventions.

MARISA ANGELL BROWN, PhD | Genie Loci

Marisa is founder and president for Genie Loci, a consulting and project design office based in Providence where she creates programs (analog, digital, and hybrid) that engage the public with architecture, landscape, and urban space. Marisa holds a PhD in architectural history from Yale University, an MA in history from the University of Chicago, and a BA from Princeton University.

Immersion

Local Action Team

The following individuals were selected to join Scheinfeldt’s local action team, not only for their expertise but for their qualities of being open-minded, entrepreneurial and team-oriented. The group represented different positions and seniority within their institutions to promote coordination across organizations and build leadership.

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AMBER CAULKINS | Association of Independent Colleges & Universities of Rhode Island

Amber is the Director of Policy and Research for AICU Rhode Island where she researches, monitors, analyzes, and evaluates legislative and community issues that impact AICU Rhode Island member institutions. Amber also leads The College & University Research Collaborative (The Collaborative), which serves to connect public policy and academic research for Rhode Island.

MADELEINE ESCH | Salve Regina University

Madeleine is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Communications at Salve Regina Unviersity, where she teaches journalism and media studies. Her research focuses on consumer culture and gender in media, particularly in lifestyle television.

HOWARD NEWMAN | Newmans, Ltd. Fine Metal Restoration

Howard is the founder of Newmans Ltd. Fine Metal Restorationand creator of the IP development firm, Sigma Surfacing LLC in 2011. Howard studied Architecture, Anthropology and Sociology at Miami University of Ohio. Howard received his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

RI HistoricalSociety @RIHistory: Inspiring, divergent day talking digital humanities + cultural entrepreneurship w/ @CatalyzingNwpt Local Action Team led by @foundhistory2015/06/11

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STACIE M. PARILLO | Providence Public Library

Stacie is Digital Producer at the Providence Public Library where she is responsible for maintaining and preserving digital collections. She also creates access to and showcases PPL’s various collections through online repositories and digital exhibits. She holds an MA in Communication Studies from Suffolk University, and an MS in Library & Information Science from Simmons College.

KAITY RYAN | Preservation Society of Newport County

Kaity is Manager of Preservation Policy at the PSNC where she oversees the organization’s policy and advocacy efforts. She holds an MS in Historic Preservation from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and a BA in Art History from Drew University.

ALYSSA SMITH | Worldways Social Marketing

Alyssa is a communication advisor and social media coordinator, working on a number of municipal government and social service agencies, including the City of Newport. She is a graduate of the Harrington School of Communication at the University of Rhode Island.

Participating in Catalyzing

Newport’s local action team

introduced me to important

new people for my professional

network in Rhode Island. I now

feel confident reaching out to a

whole new group of colleagues

from across the state.

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kaity ryan, Manager of Preservation Policy The Preservation Society of Newport County

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The last two days of Scheinfeldt’s residency were spent with the local action team and focused on solving the local challenge: How can we work together to increase scholarly and public access to Newport’s renowned and sometimes hidden historical assets and collections? Several topics garnered much discussion around the table:

CHALLENGES

– Unexplored and under appreciated histories – Social and financial barriers for low to moderate income residents of Newport – Geographical barriers, including concentration of historic properties in dense “cultural corridor” and separation of low to moderate income community from Newport’s waterfront – Urban innovation efforts not focused on “cultural corridor”

OPPORTUNITIES

– Access to authentic history – Beautiful natural and built environments – Historical working port city has been a center of exchange of ideas and commerce since its founding – Networks and connectivity – Innovation initiatives connected to authentic history – Active, engaged citizen scholars

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Outlined here are some

of the key challenges and

opportunities discussed with the

catalysts in the brainstorming

phase that informed the

creation of their experiment.

The Sticky Notes Session

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SETTING CHANGE INTO MOTION

The RFP Emerges

The resulting RFP, (re)Newport, was produced during the local action team’s workshop with Scheinfeldt and informed by conversations and ideas generated throughout the week. As part of their process to develop the RFP, the local action team reviewed some examples of national and international projects they felt were innovative in their examination of place. Inspiration projects included Block Island’s Glass Float project, Boston’s Participatory Chinatown, Washington, DC’s Union Station Tour app, NY’s Jewish Time Jump, and Library of Birmingham’s (UK) Dozens and Trails app. Some of these projects are physically and materially connected to a place, some are all digital, and some offer hybrid experiences. The models all share the goal of inspiring curiosity and adventurous learning about a place, and some even allow for citizens to join a conversation about a civic issue. They also interested the group as they were meant to be very active, participatory experiences that brought communities together in dialogue and exchange – which is a key goal of (re)Newport.

Seed Grants | Experiments | Connections

The Results

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(RE)NEWPORT OVERVIEW: This RFP is a call for an immersive, participatory, location-based “adventure” (for you to define!). (re)Newport’s goal is to expose Newport’s cultural treasures, its buildings and landscape, and its histories and myths, in an effort to build community, invigorate connections between and beyond the cultural sector, and spark curiosity and wonder.

(RE)NEWPORT SCOPE: Successful projects will create a tool and/or a prototype to:• Creatively engage the collections and networks of all of the Catalyzing Newport institutions• Incorporate diverse locations across Newport including a mix of public, private, and

semi-public places, indoor and outdoor spaces, and the waterfront • Engage Newport’s diverse communities, classes, races, and subcultures to promote

civic engagement • Allow participants to shape their own experiences through physical and digital interactions• Acknowledge real or perceived loss and/or contested spaces or narratives• Produce tangible traces or artifacts that outlive the experience

* Please keep in mind that this RFP is seeking a proof-of-concept that has the potential to be scaled up into a larger project.

ELIGIBILITY: This pilot project is intended to encourage bold proposals. We seek creative and entrepreneurial scholars, artists, and techies from diverse disciplines, sectors, and career fields who will join a team to devise and implement the pilot vision. Suggested skills, traits, and approaches include: 1) problem solving 2) empathy 3) ability to work without hierarchy 4) collaboration 5) flexibility 6) sense of humor.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: (RE)NEWPORT

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DESIGN + HUMANITIES | Kathleen Shannon

Design and humanities: we don’t often see these words together, but it’s a potentially powerful combination to address the challenges we face in an increasingly complex world.

Often we think of “design” as an aesthetic or the last phase of development, i.e. the surface of a pretty product or packaging. But design really begins in the process of discovery and developing a concept for an idea, product, or solution. Humanities, moreover, are often associated with academic disciplines, e.g. History, Philosophy, Literature, Religion, etc., struggling for relevance in a technology-driven economy and increasingly STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) focused educational system. This understanding misses both the qualities and the expertise engendered through the humanities: critical thinking, interpretation, expression, connection, context, empathy, and more. The humanities are valuable not only because they connect us to the past but because they contribute to forward-looking endeavors.

Fundamentally, design and humanities thinking – their methods and understanding of experiences and human behavior that shape us and our future – are essential in any approach to discovery, whether it be health, economic inequality, urban vitality, or access to education. But why should we integrate design and humanities in practice?

Bringing design and humanities together challenges the current expectations and environment for research, which create silos rather than connections and impede progress on significant challenges in, for example, education, the environment, and civic understanding. At the same time, there is widespread recognition that we must overcome these barriers; many federal agencies, corporations, and foundations are searching for new approaches to research that connect disciplines to understand problems and opportunities, tackle major challenges, and accelerate solutions.

No one organization alone can

tackle the challenges presented

by today’s dynamic and

complex world. Problem solving

today requires organizations to

open their doors and nurture

a dialogue with a diversity of

experts in order to connect,

create and act in ways that

support a bold new future.

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elizabeth francis, Executive Director Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

Essay

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Design and humanities have come together most clearly in the field of digital humanities. The digital environment has made it possible to connect disciplines and sectors on a large scale, going beyond just the ability to access more information and to collect more data. Digital humanities have shown us that researchers need access to collaborators who can help them think creatively about questions, problems, and approaches.

Design + Humanities provides a way for researchers to understand context, devise applications, and forecast impact. Catalyzing Newport anticipates that this process can also be used to connect researchers, professionals, and engaged citizens across sectors, e.g., historians, cultural innovators and artists, legislators, policy makers, health professionals, educators, preservationists and conservationists, tourism professionals, business developers and manufacturers, and urban planners. Seeded with Scheinfeldt’s visit, the core value of bridging Design + Humanities will drive future Catalyzing Newport activities.

Stacie Parillo @stacieparillo: Younger people collaborate better because they have less to lose. #catalyzingnewport2015/06/09

Essay

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Acknowledgments

Catalyzing Newport Steering Committee

Chelsea Buffington, Salve Regina University

Trudy Coxe, The Preservation Society of Newport County

Terry Dickinson, The Preservation Society of Newport County

Norah Diedrich, Newport Art Museum

Morgan Grefe, Rhode Island Historical Society

Benedict Leca, Redwood Library & Athenaeum

Pieter Roos, Newport Restoration Foundation

Doug Stark, International Tennis Hall of Fame

Catalyzing Newport Project Team

Elizabeth Francis, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

SueEllen Kroll, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

Kathleen Shannon, Kathleen A. Shannon, LLC

Catalyzing Newport Advisors

Paul Carroll, City of Newport

Maureen Cronin, Worldways Social Marketing

Collaboration First Local Action Team

Shawn Badgely, Rhode Island Historical Society

Melissa Barker, City of Newport

Markus Berger, Rhode Island School of Design

Marisa Angell Brown, Genie Loci

Amber Caulkins, Association of Independent Colleges & Universities of Rhode Island

Madeleine Esch, Salve Regina University

Howard Newman, Newmans, Ltd. Fine Metal Restoration

Stacie Parillo, Providence Public Library

Kaity Ryan, The Preservation Society of Newport County

Alyssa Smith, Worldways Social Marketing

Thank you to the following for their support and involvement

John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities at Brown University

Deborah Linnell, van Beuren Charitable Foundation

Elizabeth Lynn, van Beuren Charitable Foundation

Newportal Collaborative

Tom Scheinfeldt, University of Connecticut

Scott Zeman, Salve Regina University

THE VALUE AND VALUES OF CATALYZING NEWPORT A Springboard for Conversation, Commitment, and Action

Catalyzing Newport encourages those who are inspired by our forums and conversations to engage more fully with us through dialogue, attendance at our events, and via direct participation in one of our catalysts’ visits. Below are some of the core values we find helpful in guiding our work in Newport. We invite you to carry these over to your own community-based projects.

ENGAGE early and often. Allow for a diversity of input and participation early in your process to garner community buy-in.

COLLABORATION will expand possibilities. But it requires openness to different approaches and to change.

NURTURE systems leaders. Support intra-organization and cross-sector relationships at all levels.

What we are Learning so Far

– Activating new voices builds momentum for change – Increasing access to public/private spaces enhances civic life and engagement –Connecting across organizations provides leadership opportunities for staff – Attracting talent and scholars requires access, innovation, and opportunities –Creating an authentic, state-of-the-art tourism experience lifts everyone up – Unifying Newport’s history leads to inspiring the future

catalyzingnewport.org | sue@rihumanities.org Follow us @CatalyzingNwpt

FOR MORE INFORMATION

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www.catalyzingnewport.org