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» Call for Research
» Check the FootNotes
» Summer Must Be Here
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IssueLab eNews

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Issue 27 — June 4, 2009

I'm lucky -- that is if you believe that luck has anything to do with anything. I grew up in a family that looked at and talked about art. I went to a school where art was a regular part of my education from fourth grade on. Math at 9am, History at 10am, Art at 11am ... I didn't even think twice about it. This didn't make me a great artist but that was never the point. It was about everything else that Art Education can be: it made me visually literate; it supported my critical thinking skills; it offered an invaluable escape; it allowed me to express myself.

There isn't a whole lot of debate about the fact that art makes a difference, that it enriches people's lives. And yet the research on Arts Education strives to document and explain exactly how this happens and what it even means -- an especially tough task in this era of "No Child Left Behind" where measurement means everything.

This month's CloseUp is an incredible collection of 50+ case studies and evaluations of Arts Education programs from across the nation. These reports offer an i ncredible mix of inspiring projects and frank evaluation of Arts Education programs happening both inside the classroom and in neighborhoods outside the classroom. Regardless of how lucky or unlucky you were in your own experience of art education, if you care about art and you care about education we encourage you to read one or two of these reports, share them with a friend who is a teacher, or artist, or someone who simply aspires to be inspired.

[ picture courtesy of carf ]

» Call for Research: Environmental Racism

Our next CloseUp (August and September) will be a collection of research on Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice. When environmental policies or practices result in racial inequity, nonprofits and university-based centers are often some of the first players on the scene to cry foul and investigate the problem further. IssueLab is looking for research that explores the connection between minority groups and the environment, it does not explicitly need to reference Environmental Racism or Justice. These may be case studies, whitepapers, fact sheets, datasets, briefs, or any other publication that is data-driven. As an historic archive, IssueLab welcomes older research as well as current work.

Please email Stacy if you know of an organization producing work that would be a good addition to this collection.

» Check the FootNotes

Call us fashionably late but really we just wanted to make sure we practice what we preach, specifically this thing we've been preaching to nonprofits for years now ... "know what you are going to say and why you want to say it before you start blogging". Well, we know what we want to say and why we want to say it so it must be time to launch IssueLab's very own blog, FootNotes, where we cover the topic of nonprofit research from both the micro and macro levels. Our first few posts give you a good taste of what's to come. There's something here for everyone: references, resources, comments and review.

• "All Rights Reserved." All Wrong?
• Tips for Interpreting Research
• Connecting the Dots: Interdisciplinary Thinking In the Third Sector
• Three Steps to Making Your Research Report More Usable
• Research Summary: A Tale of Two Colleges

We welcome your comments and opinions, so please check out the blog and weigh in with your own thoughts.

» Summer Must Be Here ...

... because IssueLab's interns Are! A quick welcome to IssueLab's 2009 summer interns Claire and Melissa! We are so pleased to have them here helping IssueLab with everything from finding hidden research gems to helping our Research Contributors get more attention for their work. Can't you already hear the sweet hum of IssueLab in full gear?

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