As educators, Jen Guillemin and Wendy Swart Grossman count themselves as incredibly lucky to work in a field that is rooted in personal transformation and changing lives. It is through education that we lift people and help them reach their full potential.
Watch the replay now, and learn more, below.
WHAT IS THE URGENCY THAT HAS LED TO THE EMERGENCE OF CREATIVE RE/FRAME? (Build up to our TED TALK!)
For nearly a decade, we’ve been co-teaching classes on creative entrepreneurship and the creative economy and social impact. Our original goal was to help artists and arts administrators to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset so they can re-envision and recreate the arts economy of the future. We soon learned that our message resonated with a broader constituency and we welcomed engineers, business students, communication and history majors into our classes, along with our artists. These students left their silos and discovered the potency of working on interdisciplinary teams to conceptualize creative ventures. They were able to tap into their creativity and each bring unique value to the team.
We made it our job to become experts on the creative economy and on successful, cross sector ventures that work at the intersection of arts, business and social impact. In 2019, we were invited to give a TEDx Talk about our work and that is when we realized that we had a bigger calling and decided to launch Creative Re/Frame.
Through our work, we’ve come to realize that other colleges and universities could benefit from our cross-sector approach rooted in creativity. We recognize the potential for University innovation and entrepreneurship centers to infuse the arts and creativity into the centers.
Arts and humanities programs offer powerful resources to these centers. And, in turn, these centers help to fuel interest in arts and humanities programs because students can see how to leverage their interests and passions toward a future career.
IS THERE A REAL NEED FOR WHAT YOU DO? AND WHY ARE YOU (50 year olds!) THE RIGHT PEOPLE? WHY NOW?
We model what we teach our students and believe this is important at any age. Be authentic, be the change you want to see in the world and be looking for ways to generate social, cultural and economic value. All are important.
With the advent of both the Corona Virus compounded with the needed structural dismantling of our racist infrastructure we as a society are looking for creative overhauls of our systemic problems. In addition, Higher Education institutions are looking to find their relevancy and help students get the tools they need to help lead the way. Combine this with the explosion of students who want/need to be working in paid jobs with Social Return on Investment – Creative Re/Frame Team is well poised to add to their conversations by delivering well honed skills in entrepreneurship but starting in a place of deep listening with an orientation of action.
About Jen Guillemin and Wendy Swart Grossman
Jen Guillemin – with 20 years working as an advocate, counselor and teacher of student-artists, Jen has worked as an intrapreneur, creating programs to strengthen the educational pipeline for artists. From creating art classes in underserved elementary schools, to starting a Summer Institute for high school students to leading a University art school.
Wendy Swart Grossman – coming from a national and international political and community organizing background Wendy has been working with social impact businesses throughout her career with an eye on helping them to work more creatively to meet their mission and expand their Social Return On Investment.
