Arts and Cultural Heritage Grants Program-Councils of Color (State Fiscal Years 2012-2013)
Per Minnesota Law, the Minnesota Humanities Center administers a competitive Arts and Cultural Heritage Grants Program-Councils of Color. The Humanities Center uses a portion of the funds to provide grants administration, including releasing an RFP, overseeing the proposal process, coordination of the independent review panel, agreement drafting, financial and program monitoring, and reporting.
Sandra Agustín, is an independent arts and civic dialogue consultant and performance based artist. She has collaborated with entities such as the Minnesota State Arts Board where she served as a program officer helping to coordinate and distribute Legacy Funds. For over 15 years, she has consulted for several local and national agencies including the Bush Foundation, Americans for the Arts through their Animating Democracy program, the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs/HECUA, and Campus Compact among others.
John Day has been a Duluth resident since 1984, his wife Dr. Monica L. Roth Day, is a tenured assistant professor at UW-Superior. Mr. Day is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe with thirty-five years of work experience in Indian Education, Health/Medicine and Human Services areas. He is a member and participant of a Leech Lake Big Drum, Sweat Lodge, and numerous traditional ceremonies. John Day currently works at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Department of Social Work as Program Director for American Indian Projects with responsibility for oversight to the AIP deliverables with an emphasis on outreach activities, partnerships, and collaborations with the seven Minnesota Chippewa Tribes. In addition, Mr. Day serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Social Work and in the Department of Indian Studies.
As superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools, Dr. William Green was directly responsible for overseeing the district’s business functions and academic achievement for all students. He served on the Minneapolis Board of Education from 1993-2001 and was board chair from 1996-1998. In addition to his history professorship at Augsburg, he also serves as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.
Archie Givens Jr. is the CEO and Director of Legacy Management & Development Corporation. In addition to that, he is a managing partner of Rainbow Development Corporation, developing over 1,100 affordable housing units throughout the state of Minnesota. For the past 30 years, He has been an entrepreneur, largely dedicating his work to developing affordable housing and services for seniors and families. He is also the President of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
Erik Takeshita has nearly 20 years of community building experience in the non‐profit and public sectors. As an independent consultant, Takeshita provides strategic planning, program development, project management and leadership development services to a wide‐range of organizations interested in building stronger communities, empowering communities of color and leveraging the power of the arts. Takeshita is also a Senior Program Officer with the Minneapolis/St. Paul office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) where he is in charge of the “Sustainable Communities Initiative,” a comprehensive approach to community development.