State Cultural Policy: What is it? Does Illinois have one? Should it?

The University of Chicago Gleacher Center, 450 North Cityfront Plaza Drive

Presenter: J. Mark Schuster, Editor and Project Director of Mapping State Cultural Policy: The State of Washington (Cultural Policy Center 2003)

Discussants: Reginald Jones, Executive Director of the Steans Family Foundation, and Kristina Valaitis, Executive Director of the Illinois Humanities Council

Respondent: Jody Kretzmann, co-director of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute (ABCD Institute) at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University and an advocate of mapping community level assets as part of a planning process

The research process and some of the most significant findings for Mapping State Cultural Policy: The State of Washington will be presented. A discussion of a series of questions on the applications of this study or similar studies like it to state policymakers and cultural practitioners will then follow. As the first study of cultural policy on the state level, the book provides a method and framework for examining the totality of a state’s direct support and interventions in support of its culture. The report represents the range of ways this state enacts cultural policy, sometimes without deliberate attempt to do so.