Lesley College Current (Summer,1981) Lesley College
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Lesley University DigitalCommons@Lesley Lesley College Current Special Collections and Archives Summer 1981 Lesley College Current (Summer,1981) Lesley College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/lesley_current Recommended Citation Lesley College, "Lesley College Current (Summer,1981)" (1981). Lesley College Current. 50. https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/lesley_current/50 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Special Collections and Archives at DigitalCommons@Lesley. It has been accepted for inclusion in Lesley College Current by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Lesley. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "The Arts Institute is a non-institution that tries to deal with that glimmering of hue and companionship that exists between men and women everywhere in the world, and no one before has tried to deal with it on a truly human and artistic level. " —Truman Nelson, novelist and historian Vice President and Dean of the Graduate School. Richard E. lVy/,e. and his son, Greg. In the summer of 1980 I experienced the Summer Colloquium of the Arts In stitute. The intensive immersion into Expressive Therapy took me from the realities of college administration into some of the rewards of re-learning and experiencing new feelings and senses as well as those lost by time. The anxieties and frustra tions generated by participating with 110 entering graduate students were great, albeit for a short time, but the rewards had a tremendous impact. For the first time I gained a real knowledge and an understanding of the Arts Institute. 1 recognized the brightness and the intensity of the students, the unique qualities and the dedication of the faculty, and most of all the value of Expressive Therapy. The Graduate School is proud of the Arts Institute and recognizes its great con tribution to mental health the world over. /7 . ^ ./ « TllC LEgLEY COLLEgE CURRENT S u m m e r 1 9 8 1 V o l u m e V I I I X o . 2 Contents How It All Began 2 Danee Therapy 7 Music Therapy 9 Teaching Art Therapy 10 Art Therapy 11 Expressive Therapy at Danvers 12 A n I n t e r n s h i p a t D a n v e r s 1 3 E x p r e s s i v e A r t s T h e r a p i s t 1 4 Psychodrama 15 T h e r e a r e w o r d s . a n d t h e r e a r e w o r d s 1 7 I n t e g r a t e d A r t s 1 9 M u s e u m E d u c a t o r 2 1 A Perspective on the Master's Thesis Process 22 S e c o n d - Y e a r M a s t e r ' s T h e s i s 2 2 A Psychiatrist's Perspective 23 Commencement 1981 24 C l a s s H i s t o r i e s 2 6 Reunion 1981 32 Editor Kathryn K. Furlong Art Director Barbara Wrenn Contributing Editors Linda Holmfred, Tina Kruse Layout Artist Lee-Ann Larson D i r e c t o r o f A l u m n i A f f a i r s Ruth Anne Jaffe Photographers Peter Travers, Mark B. Wise The Current (USPS 495-090) is published quarterly, in the fall, winter, spring, and summer, by the Public Relations Office of Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02238, and is distributed without charge to alumni, parents, and friends of the College. Second-class postage is paid at Boston, MA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Current, Lesley College, 29 Everett Street. Cambridge, MA 02238. L e t t e r s t o t h e E d i t o r a r e w e l c o m e . Before 1974, graduate programs approach to educating the whole in the arts and psychotherapy did person provided a supportive institu not exist at Lesley, in New England, tional foundation for our Integrated or in many other regions of the Arts in Education program. It is one U n i t e d S t a t e s . A s t h e I n s t i t u t e f o r of the only programs in the United the Arts and Human Development S t a t e s w h i c h r e l a t e s t h e a r t s t o a l l (the Arts Institute) began to grow in facets of educational experience. to the largest graduate division at The way in which most universities Lesley, Bill Perry, who was then and arts academies separate the Vice President and Dean of arts into different departments and Graduate Studies, used to tell schools makes it difficult, or im people that he found me one day possible, to provide a fully in selling newspapers in Harvard tegrated training experience for Square and that I asked him if I teachers. How It All Began could come to Lesley and engage There were other Lesley qualities the school in the arts. He liked to that furthered the growth of the Arts by Shaun McNiff* s m i l e a b o u t h o w h e t o o k m e t o Institute. The flexible, open, and lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club, s t u d e n t - c e n t e r e d h u m a n i s m o f t h e his favorite midday haunt. faculty and administration created We started from base zero, setting an atmosphere conducive to an arts up a new kind of graduate program, center. The College administration and we did it within an institution was vigorously supportive of ex t h a t u n t i l 1 9 7 4 w a s n o t k n o w n f o r i t s perimentation. We were provided excellence in the arts. Yet Lesley with nothing but open doors and had something, a number of help at every stage of our develop qualities, not existing in the nation's ment. leading arts academies, that would I used to go home at night to my support and shape the cataclysmic wife Karen, a Lesley master's degree growth of arts in psychotherapy and graduate and the person who first arts in education programs. introduced me to the College, and Although the College did not have tell her how I could not believe the an image as an arts center, it was place. It seemed too perfect. Having recognized for its excellence in been an art therapist at a large state preparing professionals for careers i n s t i t u t i o n , I w a s a c c u s t o m e d t o b e in education. This reputation was to i n g m y o w n e x c l u s i v e s o u r c e o f be a primary force in the growth of motivation. I was not used to having t h e A r t s I n s t i t u t e . W e w e r e t h e fi r s t an institution be an equal partner in graduate program to engage the providing the inspiration for crea College in the preparation of tion. I was 27-years-old and inex psychotherapists, and artist/ perienced in higher education, and I therapists at that. believe that not only the Arts In We discovered that the College's stitute but my own professional iden history in training educators was tity were shaped by the dynamic at working to our advantage. People mosphere at Lesley. were looking for alternatives to con Peter Von Mertons, who in 1974 ventional medical and psycho- w a s a n A s s i s t a n t D e a n o f t h e pathological approaches to therapy. Graduate School and the Director of There was a craving for more Continuing Education, was the per creative and growth-oriented ways of son instrumental in moving Lesley relating to people within mental College, and me, into the field of ex health programs. We found the pressive therapy training. We were philosophical foundations of our arts together after a faculty meeting in in a psychotherapy program to be a the Department of Special Educa •Shaun McNiff, Ph.D., ATR, Dean and Pounder oj the Arts Institute. Professor of Ex perfect fit for Lesley. The College's tion and I was talking to him about pressive Therapy, exhibiting artist, author of how the College should consider he Arts in Psychotherapy and numerous expanding the individual courses JWrnal articles, served as the chairman of that I was teaching in art therapy the Professional Standards Committee and of the Peer Standards Review Board of the into a specialization within Special American Art Therapy; Association, and has Education. Peter encouraged me to lectured throughout the United States. t h i n k b i g g e r a n d c r e a t e a n a r t s Earope, and Israel.