Tom to Offer Workshops at Columbia College Leadership Week

Tom will be creating and facilitating four workshops for the 2008 Leadership Week at Columbia College. Here's the run down:

“Building an Effective Student Organization (that lasts longer than the current academic year)”

This workshop will lay out the fundamentals for building an effective campus organization that will outlast your own participation. Think of it as establishing a new nonprofit organization. Most of the elements that make a nonprofit successful can be applied to your student organization. We’ll look at mission, recruiting, leadership, communication, recruitment, programming and sustainability.

“The Artist as Leader (Yes, You!)”

Did you ever think of yourself as a leader? Would you believe that the very same values and skills that brought you to Columbia College might make you an excellent leader in the public arena? This workshop will lay out the argument for creativity as a national value, as a basis for a new winning politics and – therefore – as the basis for a new definition of leadership.

“Creative Tools for Social Change”

Hip Hop and voter registration. Media hacking and globalization. Street theater and commercialization. Increasingly activists are turning to creative techniques to effect social change. The line between impactful social protest and creative work is becoming blurred. This workshop will introduce you to the work of a group of creative change agents called the Interventionists. Come and meet the Yes Men, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, the Billionaires for Bush and the Guerilla Girls!

“Basics of Community Organizing for Artists”

Did you notice the word “Change” plastered all over the place at Columbia? Did you know Chicago is one of the global capitals of community organizing? Community organizing is where citizens band together in the face of powerful opposition to create real change for themselves in their neighborhoods. This workshop will introduce you to the proud tradition of Chicago-style Direct Action Organizing and the work of Saul Alinsky and his successors. We’ll take a special look at how artists can participate in this powerful democratic civic work.