Part One
The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has been helping students find their voices since 1969. The success has been amazing, and the vision has spread to 4 other cities. Lee Carter, Pierre Wevers and Bob Castellini led an effort to found the Cincinnati Arts Technology Center in Longworth Hall in October 2003.
In 2011, CATC now works with 400 Cincinnati public school students every year and hundreds more in the summer. The inspiration and driving force behind this approach to unlocking student potential is my guest this morning. Bill Strickland discovered the transformative power of pottery for himself as a high school senior more than 40 years ago. Since then, he has molded the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the Bidwell Training Center into models of inspiration and education. His work has been recognized with a Mac Arthur Genius Award and emulated in 5 cities, including Cincinnati. Bill articulated his philosophy in "making the impossible, possible."
Part Two
Over the past 4 months the planning partnership of the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission has invited citizens to 3 open meetings to entitled "Sustainable Hamilton County Reinventing Our Communities." These sessions focused the forces shaping urbanized metropolitan regions, building on the existing urban fabric using best practice models from around the country, on the importance of energy efficient practices, and on the issue of fiscal sustainability in a time of severe economic stress. I had the privilege of chairing the first session, and have to tell you, I learned a great deal.
This Friday morning, Hamilton County residents, whether they attended the earlier meetings or not, are invited come together at the Cintas Center on the Xavier University campus to discuss the implications of the ideas, concepts and models surfaced in the earlier sessions.
To discuss this opportunity, I am joined this morning by Liz Blume, the Executive Director of the Community Building Institute at Xavier University. As well as Todd Kinskey, the Executive Director of the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission
