{"375931":{"#nid":"375931","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Cario Creating Culture of \u0027Yes\u0027","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMadison Cario cannot be pigeonholed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe is a Marine Corps veteran, a dancer, and cofounder of the dance-theater organization SCRAP Performance Group. She studied rhetoric and communication as an undergraduate and holds a master\u2019s degree in environmental science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe also has more than 20 years of experience in lighting, stage, and production design.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn August 2014, she came to Tech from The Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania to be the director of the Office of the Arts, a position in which she relies on her diverse skills to advance the arts on campus.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs she concluded her first semester in her new role, she shared some of her observations so far.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow was your first semester?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMy first semester was probably the shortest semester of my life. It went fast \u2014 really fast. It was amazing. It was full of students, faculty, staff, and artists.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI\u2019m a tourist here, and I enjoy that.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo, as I\u2019m walking around campus, I see everything with slightly lost, but fresh eyes. That\u2019s something I want to maintain, as the years progress here at Georgia Tech: to remember there\u2019s always something new to see or a new way to see the same thing. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI see art as an opportunity to interrupt business as usual. It\u2019s that beautiful sunset that makes you stop. It engages another part of your mind.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnytime we can encourage people to change their pathway and walk a different route, see something different, or put music where there wasn\u2019t any \u2014 the sculptures on campus are starting that process \u2014 we\u2019re shifting the business-as-usual model.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDescribe your typical day.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI spend about eight hours every day talking with students, faculty, and staff, and listening to their stories and dreams.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThen, I usually go out at night and I see a show, or see what students are up to or what they\u2019re making, or have dinner with artists and have more conversations about art in Atlanta and Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat\u2019s my day in a nutshell.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat have you learned about Tech students?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI have learned so much about the work and the research the students are doing here. They have melted my synapses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere are so many majors and avenues of research here that I\u2019m still trying to translate and understand. It\u2019s great.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe languages they speak are similar to art language. I was speaking with an engineer about a chemical process where you layer one chemical on a material to build it up, then use another chemical to strip away a certain part, and you keep doing that until you get to a point where you are happy with whatever it is; that\u2019s how you make a dance.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYou layer pieces in and then you take other pieces out. This is how you build many sculptures. So, I\u2019m finding comfort in many similarities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow do you run the Office of the Arts?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI run this office with a culture of yes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEvery project and idea is very precious to its creator. My job is to say, \u0027Yes, let\u2019s figure this out. I\u2019m not sure how this is going to work, but let\u2019s see it through.\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere\u2019s a difference between saying yes to everything and saying yes to people. I\u2019m saying yes to creative ideas, and that is important and empowering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs soon as you begin with, \u2018We don\u2019t have the money to do that,\u2019 you have killed the creativity. You should fully flesh out the idea, critique it across multiple genres, and then look for the money.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPart of our job as the Office of the Arts and as artists is to use the arts as an opportunity to understand diversity, different cultures, and different ways of interacting.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe can use art to help engage critical thinking skills. We can use art to improve students\u2019 ability to articulate.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt doesn\u2019t matter how brilliant you are if you can\u2019t tell the story and do public speaking. Improvisation is really important for interviews. What if you have the best project ever and a board member asks a question that\u2019s not on your list?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere are places where art can accentuate and make our students really competitive. All things being equal \u2014 if you\u2019re at the top of your class or field \u2014 what is going to make you better?\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat has been your experience with the Atlanta arts community?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe most surprising thing about Atlanta is that everyone I\u2019ve met has been excited to hear about what\u0027s happening with the arts at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey have suggestions of people I should meet and things I should see. People really want to see Atlanta and Georgia Tech succeed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere\u2019s an understanding that Georgia Tech has an important position in Atlanta, but there\u0027s uncertainty regarding what language they should speak to communicate with Georgia Tech. Is it the language of business? The language of science? What about the communities that don\u2019t fit into either of those fields?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI\u2019d like to use art as a safe way to welcome people. It\u2019s an easy access point.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow can you get more faculty who are not artists to be interested in Arts at Tech?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI think everybody has to be on board. For the person who doesn\u2019t think there is any art in them, I would bet they have an art moment. But, if there isn\u2019t an art moment, that\u2019s OK, too.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMaybe we are asking people to claim a title \u2014 artist \u2014 that they\u2019re not comfortable with.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMaybe we have too narrowly defined art. Architecture is art. Design is art. Engineering is art.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat\u2019s next for the Office of the Arts?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe\u2019re developing our strategic plan and how to move forward. We\u2019re looking at ways to celebrate the amazing artistry that\u2019s already on campus, but we\u2019re going to try bringing art and artists to campus \u2014 as well as take Tech art and artists off campus, too.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe\u2019re also exploring how we can advance our collective research through art and advance the research of artists.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI would like to hear what faculty and staff have to say about art. I\u2019m curious.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlso, a personal goal for me as director of the Office of the Arts is to meet every single person on this campus, to know their names, and to say hello \u2014 by name \u2014 when I pass them. It\u2019s a small goal, but it has a profound impact on me as an administrator.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Georgia Tech\u2019s Director of the Office of the Arts explains how optimism encourages innovation, and how art gives students a competitive edge."}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELast August, Madison Cario came to Georgia Tech from The Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania to be the director of the Office of the Arts, a position in which she relies on her diverse skills to advance the arts on campus. As she concluded her first semester in her new role, she spoke with The Whistle about her observations so far.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech\u0027s new director of the Office of the Arts discusses her first semester on campus"}],"uid":"27713","created_gmt":"2015-02-09 18:54:48","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:01:50","author":"Victor Rogers","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-02-17T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2015-02-17T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"379101":{"id":"379101","type":"image","title":"Madison Cario","body":null,"created":"1449246214","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:23:34","changed":"1475894390","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:50","alt":"Madison Cario","file":{"fid":"75231","name":"cario_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cario_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cario_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2190334,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cario_0.jpg?itok=EN09vkGY"}},"375351":{"id":"375351","type":"image","title":"Madison Cario","body":null,"created":"1449246194","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:23:14","changed":"1475894342","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:39:02","alt":"Madison Cario","file":{"fid":"75156","name":"madison_filmstrip.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/madison_filmstrip.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/madison_filmstrip.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3586058,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/madison_filmstrip.jpg?itok=EioPxfXU"}}},"media_ids":["379101","375351"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/arts.gatech.edu\/","title":"Office of the Arts"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"42891","name":"Georgia Tech Arts"}],"keywords":[{"id":"3798","name":"arts"},{"id":"64641","name":"arts@tech"},{"id":"94491","name":"Madison Cario"},{"id":"37131","name":"Office of the Arts"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:victor.rogers@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EVictor Rogers\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-894-6398\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["victor.rogers@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}