CommonGround 2008
Mindful Innovations

April 9 - 11, 2008
Crowne Plaza, Albany

Keynote Speakers

 Gail Burnaford

Dr. Gail Burnaford has been Professor of Teacher Education since 2003 at Florida Atlantic University, where she teaches doctoral course work in program evaluation and instructional practices.  Her research interests are in teacher action research, teacher development, program evaluation, and integrating the arts, and she has presented her school program evaluation research at many conferences in the United States and Europe. Dr. Burnaford has been an evaluator on numerous projects and programs including the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education, the New Mexico Arts Council’s Ticket to Learning in Roswell, and the Ravinia Music Festival, and has served for several years on the faculty of the Empire State Partnerships Summer Seminar.

In 2004, she completed a needs assessment, titled State of the Arts in Palm Beach County: Where Do We Go From Here? that motivated universities, community organizations, and the school district to join forces in developing and implementing a long-range plan of action for arts education and teacher professional development in the county. Dr. Burnaford has published in numerous professional journals, and is the author of four books, most recently Arts Integration Frameworks, Research, and Practice: A Literature Review (download a free copy). She studied piano and voice, and sang with Robert Shaw's Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Chamber Chorus for ten years. She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Georgia State University.

Heather Hitchens

Heather Hitchens was appointed Executive Director of the New York State Council on the Arts in June of 2007. She served as President of Meet the Composer, the pre-eminent composer service organization, for eight years, having also served as Vice President. In 1994 she became, at the age of 24, the youngest person ever to lead a professional symphony orchestra in the United States when she was named Executive Director of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. She began her career working in the development department of the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia. A percussionist since the age of six, Ms. Hitchens received her B.M. from DePauw University and her M.S. in arts administration from Drexel University. Read Heather Hitchens' keynote address.

Jeffrey W. Cannell

Jeffrey W. Cannell was appointed Deputy Commissioner for Cultural Education in the New York State Department of Education in February 2007. As Director of the Albany Public Library, he successfully passed two referenda. The first was the rechartering of the library as a public library district, a move which doubled the operating budget of the library; the second was a $29 million facilities plan that will enable the design and construction of five branch libraries. He has been active in library advocacy as part of the New York Library Association’s Legislative Committee, and is an adjunct professor at the University at Albany’s Department of Information Studies.

Born in Cleveland, OH, he grew up in Westchester County NY, and was educated at the University at Albany, earning a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature and an M.L.S. in Library Science.

Pamela Badila and Diata Diata International Folkloric Theater

Pamela Badila arrived in Paris to join Les Grands Ballets d'Afrique Noires after touring the Ivory Coast with Les Guirivoires, an ensemble of traditional Ivory Coast and contemporary American dance. With her husband and co-founder of Diata Diata International Folkloric Theater, Andre Badila of the National Congolese Ballet, and most of their ten children, they produce an annual original play at the Hudson Middle School. Their unique ability to unite children, parents, and teachers, of all races and levels of artistic access and experience, and to link their original stage productions with world music, dance, literary, and spiritual values and traditions, combined with the Columbia Co. Arts Council's mentorship of their in-school and community-wide arts-based character-building projects, will be shared with CommonGround participants.

Special Performance - Jaehn Clare

Jaehn Clare has over thirty years experience as a theatre artist, working as actor, director, producer, playwright and administrator. Her original scripts include Belle’s on Wheels, which garnered an Indie Award in 1995; Tail Tell Tale premiered in 2002 at the FOCAS Performance Festival in Lexington, KY.  Her essay “I Wasn’t Born a Mermaid” is included in From There to Here, a collection of work by individuals who have survived spinal cord injury. Jaehn has been active as a disability awareness trainer and a teaching artist since 1986, and she is currently the Director of Artistic Development with VSA arts of Georgia. She is a 2006 VSA arts Teaching Artist Fellow, a GA Wolf Trap Teaching Artist, and she works with the Kaiser Permanente Educational Theater.

Jaehn holds a B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of Minnesota, and an M.A. in Dramatic Literature from the University of Essex.  She lives in East Atlanta with her partner Earl, one feline and three canines.