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Arts and Health Outreach Initiative is launched
Ermyn F. King is coordinator of the new Arts and Health Outreach Initiative at Penn State. “The Arts and Health Outreach Initiative has the potential to stimulate growth and development of numerous outreach programs in all points of intersection between the arts and health, including how the arts can be used in the therapeutic aspects of healing to the influence of the design arts, including architecture and landscape architecture, on the design, management and maintenance of our cities and our communities to promote healthy, livable communities which will ultimately serve to minimize public health consequences.” —Donald Leslie Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Outreach, College of Arts and Architecture	The Arts and Health Outreach Initiative (AHOI), a three-year interdisciplinary partnership-based pilot project devoted to demonstrating and documenting the interrelationships between the arts and health through exemplary outreach scholarship, has been established at the University.   The College of Arts and Architecture, College of Health and Human Development, College of Medicine and Outreach and Cooperative Extension are the four principal partners supporting the new outreach initiative. The College of Arts and Architecture is serving as the academic home for AHOI. An Advisory Board meets regularly to provide strategic oversight for the initiative. Board members are listed below.   The Arts and Health Outreach Initiative embraces a broad definition of health, including not only personal health and healing, but also holistic community life and well-being. This allows AHOI to create coalitions exploring applications of the arts to personal health and healing, as well as to critical public health issues, such as violence and substance abuse prevention, empowerment of high-risk families and youth, universal design and accommodations for persons with disabilities, food system integrity and nutrition education, rehumanization of community environments and other issues. The initiative activates the entire continuum of impacts of the arts upon health — from prevention (risk reduction and resiliency promotion) to “postvention” (symptom reduction and recurrrence prevention).   The Arts and Health Outreach Initiative promotes integration of the outreach component of teaching, research and service in the arts and health. While catalyzing educational/ professional growth opportunities in the arts and health, AHOI also strengthens relevant ongoing research at the University by developing and implementing arts and health outreach projects extending such research. Additionally, the initiative stimulates new cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in the intersection of arts and health.   Ermyn F. King was appointed coordinator of the Arts and Health Outreach Initiative in November.   She received the University’s 2001 Barash Award for Human Service for her leadership in the creation and delivery of innovative arts education outreach programs for diverse audiences in a variety of University and community settings.   One such project, the CARESS (Creative Arts Rejuvenating and Empowering Survivors and Soul friends) arts and healing program, brought together breast cancer patients and caregivers in an arts immersion weekend supported through the Northern Appalachia Leadership Initiative on Cancer and Outreach and Cooperative Extension.   Another project, View Via Headphones, an audio description service offering live verbal descriptions of the visual elements of University and regional cultural events free of charge to patrons with sight loss, has been honored through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts’ “Keystones of Accessibility” program. In its inaugural year, the service offered audio description to 346 users for 45 cultural events.   King graduated from Penn State as College of Education Marshal and earned an M.A. degree in speech and dramatic arts–drama for the young at Eastern Michigan University. Following years of service as an arts educator and artist-in-schools, she joined Penn State in 1995 as interim alumni coordinator and writer/editor in the College of Health and Human Development. From 1996 to 2001, she served as project associate in the Office of the Dean in the College of Agricultural Sciences.   In her new position, she will catalyze the conceptualization, planning and development of outreach programs exploring the intersection between the arts and health. She will cultivate the development of partnerships with academic units that have expertise in the arts, health and health-related disciplines and social/behavioral sciences with other University units that focus on issues related to quality of life and with external entities supporting the AHOI mission. She will also seek external funding to support development and delivery of AHOI outreach programs and to secure permanency of the initiative.   For more information about the Arts and Health Outreach Initiative, contact Ermyn King by phone at 814-865-8230 or by e-mail at efk103@psu.edu.
Arts and Health Outreach Initiative Advisory Board The Arts and Health Outreach Initiative Advisory Board provides strategic oversight for the initiative. Board members are: Dr. Patricia A. Book, associate vice president for outreach and executive director, Division of Continuing Education Dr. Marilyn Corbin, assistant director of Penn State Cooperative Extension and state program leader for children, youth and families Dr. R. Kevin Grigsby, vice dean for faculty and administrative affairs, Penn State College of Medicine Ermyn F. King, coordinator, Arts and Health Outreach Initiative Donald Leslie, associate dean for undergraduate studies and outreach, College of Arts and Architecture Dr. Wayne D. Smutz, senior director, Outreach Program Development, and associate director, Division of Continuing Education Dr. Fred W. Vondracek, associate dean for undergraduate education and outreach, College of Health and Human Development