NOVEMBER 2024 ARTIVIST TOWN HALL
MASSCreative’s Artivist Town Hall is a monthly webinar that connects artists and creatives with resources, training, and expert insights to support their creative practices and activism. Each month, we welcome a different guest to share their expertise, provide updates on advocacy opportunities, and engage in an open town hall-style conversation where participants can ask questions, share their challenges, and receive support from the community.
This month, we welcomed Joyce Linehan and Erin O’Brien for a panel discussion about how public and cultural policies are written, how we create the momentum necessary to move legislation, and how policies impact creative communities.
MASSCreative also provided updates on recent advocacy efforts and cultural legislation, including the passage of the Mass Leads Act. The Mass Leads Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey on November 14, 2024, included $9.5 million for the new Downtown Vitality Grant Fund, $7 million in a live theater tax credit, and $50 million to reauthorize the Cultural Facilities Fund.
FEATURED SPEAKERS:
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Joyce Linehan is a creative thinker with years of experience in government, non-profits, community organizing and the private sector. She currently serves as Assistant to the President for Special Projects at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the only publicly funded free-standing art college in the country. She served for seven years as the Chief of Policy and Planning for the City of Boston, in the office of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, where she advised on all aspects of the administration’s work, including the biannual state legislative package, federal advocacy, and dozens of policy, planning, operations and staffing issues. She oversaw the creation of several new City departments and cabinets, and stewarded multiple planning efforts across departments, including the City’s first comprehensive plan in at least 50 years. Before joining the Walsh administration in 2014, she was the director of Ashmont Media, a public relations company that served Boston arts organizations. She co-owns, with performer/songwriter Joe Pernice, Ashmont Records, an independent record label that has been releasing records since 2000. She was previously the Vice President of A & R for Sub Pop Records, and has managed several bands, including The Lemonheads and The Smithereens. She was appointed by Governor Healey to serve on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners in 2023, and the Cultural Economy Advisory Council in 2024. She also serves on the boards of the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Interim House in Dorchester, Trustees of Charitable Donations for Inhabitants of Boston and on the advisory boards of the Max Warburg Courage Curriculum and the Rappaport Institute. She formerly served as a Trustee of the Boston Public Library. Linehan holds a B.A. and an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and she is a lifelong resident of Dorchester, Massachusetts.
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Professor Erin O'Brien is a Bostonian with Buckeye flair. Her primary research interests include voting access in the United States, gender in political participation/representation, Massachusetts politics, and policy feedback. Her work employs a variety of methods and approaches to social science in order to examine the connections among social policy, political thought and action, inequality, and patterns of stratification associated with social groups.
Professor O’Brien is the author of four books: More Than Blue, More Than Yankee: Complexity and Change in New England Politics (forthcoming Fall 2024, University of Massachusetts Press, co-edited), The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism: Reputation Meets Reality (University of Massachusetts Press, co-edited), The Politics of Identity: Solidarity Building among America’s Working Poor (State University of New York Press) and Diversity in Contemporary American Politics and Government (Pearson-Longman Press, co-edited). The Politics of Identity is based a year of fieldwork in a low-wage service job and in-depth interviews.
Her articles appear in top peer-reviewed journals including American Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Women & Politics, and The New England Journal of Political Science. She believes in, and practices, a publicly engaged Political Science. O’Brien’s political commentary appears frequently in national outlets including The Associated Press (AP), The Economist, The Guardian, The New Republic, The New York Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, NPR’s Marketplace, Newsweek, Time, The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Locally, she appears regularly on Bloomberg Radio Boston, GBH (Under the Radar with Callie Crossley, Morning Edition), New England Cable News (NECN), NBC10, and Boston 25 where she served as 2020 Presidential Election and impeachment analyst.
O’Brien is past co-program chair of the New England Political Science Association Annual Meeting, past president of the Southern Political Science Women’s Caucus, and recipient of best paper honors from both the Annual Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association and New England Political Science Association. She has given invited lectures and keynote addresses to academic and practitioner audiences in China, Greece, South Korea, and for groups across the United States including The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Massachusetts Historical Society, National Convention of League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters Ohio, League of Women Voters Connecticut, Progressive MASS, the Sidore Lecture Series, Harvard University, Rhodes College, Suffolk University, and University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.
O’Brien was founding President of the Department Chair’s Union at UMass Boston, past Chair of the Department of Political Science, past moderator of the College of Liberal Arts Senate, and longtime Director of the Public Policy Minor. She teaches undergraduate courses including Research Methods, Women and Politics, Sports and Politics, Public Policy, and The Politics of Poverty and US Social Welfare Policy. At the doctoral-level she teaches on Approaches to Public Policy and US Political Institutions.
O’Brien’s personal website is: https://www.drerinobrien.com/home
WEBINAR RESOURCES:
Prof. Erin O’Brien’s Slides: Influencing the Policy Process
