Nov 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Tom Kenny

You've had quite a career: playing, producing, managing. What led you to education? What brought you to IPR in Minnesota?

First of all, my grandmother was a choral director for Presbyterian churches in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was quite the teacher. My father is a professor in Valencia, California, and I found that by striving to do good work all my life, I seem to spend as much time teaching and passing information on in the creative workplace as I do in education.

I was born in Minneapolis. In 2006, I was contacted by an executive search company and asked if I would be interested in applying for a president or Dean's position at a four-year music college in St. Paul. At this point, I hadn't been in Minneapolis since the mid-'90s, when I would come to check on acts that were being produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for MCA Records. My first reaction was I had never heard of the school before, and it's too cold.

What was your view of pro audio education when you walked into IPR?

The first thing that interested me was the fact that Steve Hodge was chair of the Audio Production and Engineering program. After meeting Lance Sabin, the co-founder, and Brian Jacoby, the campus director, and other administration and instructors, it felt more like a professional co-op of talented people than it did an “institute.” And the students acted and performed like professionals. I found there was a great potential for growing, and a vibe that was a mix of professional experience, academic knowledge and real-world application.

We've talked before about the importance of a total education across all media and entertainment business disciplines. What does a student need to know today?

Every damn thing he can get his hands on! The brain is not compartmentalized. It functions just like a hard drive, or a better example would be a large sponge. And with technology as king, the environment in a delicate balance and mankind still not able to curb its hunter/gatherer instincts into some form of peaceful coexistence, today's student is in a hell of a fix if he doesn't learn as much as possible, not only about his chosen endeavor, but how the world works.

Tell us about Ideawerks, the program that provides media training and equipment to kids through Minneapolis' park system.

Ideawerks is a multimedia arts, recording technology and public achievement after-school program. It was developed by myself and a hardworking ad-hoc committee of volunteers who are friends of IPR and past colleagues of Jackie Lee Robinson, who was one of the original co-founders of the Institute and the namesake of the nonprofit Jackie Lee Robinson Foundation.

The original idea was to institute this youth program in a single park in Minneapolis. After creating the program — policy guidelines, parent and participant handbooks, registration forms, curriculum, syllabi, teaching plans, use of Public Achievement Principals, equipment lists and proposed locations — I presented our after-school program and five-year partnership contract to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. It was unanimously approved for inclusion in recreation centers in the Minneapolis Park System. On June 15, 2009, Ideawerks started its 12-week summer program. The program functions all year round, based on 10-week semesters that parallel the Minneapolis Public School System schedule.

What is the school's involvement?

IPR's involvement is two-fold. First of all, IPR has donated iMac computers, mobile workstations, a Digidesign Control|24 control surface, Mac G5 towers and various software. Graduates, friends and input from current instructors at IPR helped formulate the program's curriculum, which is a customized version of what is taught every day at IPR to college students.

The second part is the support it gives to the Jackie Lee Robinson Foundation and the Ideawerks program to increase its influence and outreach to help youth aged 12 to 17 in the greater Minneapolis community, which for me is an honorable homecoming — to be able to help children in the city where I was born.

Have you lined up wider industry support?

We have Digidesign, M-Audio and Avid as donors of software and hardware. Sennheiser has donated all of the professional microphones and headphones, with a lifetime warranty. A local Minneapolis company, Allied Audio, has provided us with microphone stands and cables. Ableton has provided us with multiple copies of Ableton Live software, and we are also very lucky to have just received support and equipment from Euphonix. The program has also garnered its first scholarship from the Page Education Foundation in Minneapolis, which will be given to a student chosen from the Ideawerks program to attend IPR.

Why is it important for educators to become involved in their communities?

Because if they don't, it means they only exist in their heads and are of no consequence to the community at large. We all must live in the real world.

---

Tom Kenny is Mix's editorial director.