VASTA VOICE September 2008 Vol. 4 Issue 5
A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Beth McGee
Hello Everyone,
It was so good to see so many of you at this year’s conference in Ashland,
Oregon. We partnered with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and had
terrific days of attending OSF productions, talking about the shows with their
voice coaches and directors, playing on the OSF Elizabethan stage, experiencing
and discussing “color blind casting,” and learning from each other in
jam-packed VASTA day sessions.
For those of you who weren’t able to attend, I look forward to continuing our
relationships through the VASTAVox, the VASTAVoice, and our 2009 conference in
New York City the first week of August, 2009.
FROM THE EDITOR
Jeff Morrison
Greetings
VASTAns,
This is the post-conference newsletter, which this year, for the first time in
a while, will contain the Minutes of the annual VASTA Board Meeting. VASTA has
had an enormous impact on how Voice and Speech is perceived as a profession, as
an academic discipline, as an area of scholarly inquiry, and in a myriad of
other ways since its inception in 1986, and most of those changes are
ultimately the result of the hard work of VASTA’s Board over the years.
But it’s important to remember that VASTA’s Board Members are drawn from
the organization’s membership and that what the organization does is driven by
the needs of its members. VASTA’s membership is made up of voice and speech
professionals from all the nooks and crannies of our strange and wonderful
world, and the Board tries to pursue initiatives that will serve that entire
constituency.
FROM THE MEMBERSHIP DIVERSITY COMMITTEE CHAIR
Antonio Ocampo-Guzman
I am delighted to succeed Beth McGee as Chair of the Diversity Committee for
VASTA and to re-introduce our members: Nancy Bell, Joanna Cazden, Micha
Espinosa, Michelle Lopez-Ríos, Elizabeth Terrel and Phil Thompson. Beth will
continue to serve in her capacity as President, and Phil Timberlake is our new
Board Liaison.
The conference in Ashland provided a wonderful opportunity to further our
conversations about diversity, specifically when it comes to non-traditional
casting. We were lucky to have Dr. Ayanna Thompson, Associate Professor of
English and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, as one of our
presenters.
YOUR BOARD AT WORK
Anne Schilling
Minutes from the VASTA Board Meeting
in July... The VASTA Board of Directors met July 26th and 30th during the VASTA
Conference in Ashland, OR for the annual summer board meeting. The
meeting was a great opportunity for the Board and Officers to reflect upon the
2008 Conference while still basking in its successes and its challenges.
In addition to conversations about the conference, the Board addressed a
wide range of issues, for example, the 2009 New York conference, options for
future conferences, Board and Officer position openings and replacements,
technological advancements and modifications to web resources, the 2009 Voice
and Speech Review, and endowment grants and awards. The following outline
reflects highlights of the meeting.
Dorothy Mennen Research/Development Grant
Eric Armstrong
The VASTA Endowment Grants and Awards Committee is pleased to announce its
first grant/award for 2008-09. VASTA's Dorothy Mennen Research/Development
Grant awards of up to $1000 to fund VASTA members for research or
professional development. This is the second time VASTA has been able to offer
this kind of grant, thanks to the success of our VASTA Endowment; the first
grant was awarded to Brad Gibson, who attended a workshop with Richard
Armstrong at the Banff Centre (in Alberta, Canada) with his award money. As
part of the ongoing mission of the organization, VASTA is very pleased to be
able to support the profession by providing an opportunity to members for greater
professional development.This award is named for Dorothy Runk Mennen, "the
mother of us all," who served as the founding president of VASTA. She
organized the voice and speech program for the American Theatre Association in
1968, and in 1986 helped to found VASTA. Dorothy created the voice curriculum
at Purdue University where she taught until 1985, and as Professor Emerita she
was involved in the classroom climate interactive theatre workshop program.
Dorothy continued as a vital member of the VASTA board for a good twenty
years into her retirement. Dorothy's spirit of encouragement, vision of
inclusivity, professionalism, determination and generosity are at the heart of
VASTA's mission.
VASTA Members are invited to apply for awards of up to $1000.
Beneficent Grant
Eric Armstrong
Beneficent: adj., (of a person) generous or doing good; resulting in
good.
The VASTA Endowment Grants and Awards Committee is pleased to announce its new
grant, The VASTA Beneficent Grant. This grant awards up to $1000 to support an
organization whose mandate reflects VASTA's Vision, Goals and Mission. Thanks
to the success of our VASTA Endowment, we are able to "give back" to
the community through this grant.
VASTA Members are invited to nominate an organization. Examples...
