CHENANGO COUNTY – Under the new direction of recently appointed executive director Alecia ONeill, the Chenango Arts Council is hard at work in instituting its multi-faceted plan to help make the arts more accessible for people of all ages in Chenango County.
After six months of serving as interim executive director at CAC, ONeill was officially appointed executive director at the CAC's Board of Directors meeting on Thursday, June 22.
Since her appointment, ONeill says it's been nice to be able to put some of CAC's plans from the last six months in motion.
"It's been really good, we've gotten a lot of things accomplished, approved, and put into motion," ONeill said. "There are a lot of things we've put into motion since January, and now that I don't have to put the word 'interim' in front of 'executive director,' we can move forward with some of the things we've been talking about."
One of the first motions at CAC under ONeill's direction is the council's initiative to make the arts more accessible to local children at school districts throughout Chenango County. ONeill says that as executive director, she has been in the works of creating an open dialogue with all school districts in the county.
Specifically speaking, ONeill says she and her team at CAC have been working to institute Makers' Spaces at school districts in the county. Makers' Spaces – essentially workspaces for students to practice their craft of choice – are a welcome addition to districts in the county since the nationwide movement of STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) has grown to include the arts and thus become STEAM.
"We want to inspire kids to learn using the arts," said ONeill. "If a student likes music, music can help them better understand math. We want to give them something fun to do and spark an interest. If we bring a student into one of our exhibits and show them, for example, a bat skeleton, and show them how moving one little thing makes both of the wings flap––if that turns them into an engineer and they apply it in a career, we've done our job.”
ONeill says that CAC's initiative with local school districts is just one aspect and 'spoke' of the wheel that they have turning since employing its new vision.
