Scott Dawson, program coordinator of digital media at Clark State Community College, returned to Washington, D.C. to participate in a reunion of past Champions of Change. Dawson was honored by the White House with this distinction in 2011 as part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative.
“I was honored to be selected as a Champion of Change in arts education in 2011,” said Dawson. “The honor was given to ‘arts education practitioners and leaders who are doing innovative things in their communities.’ At the time, I was director of outreach and education for the Clark State Performing Arts Center and managed five arts outreach and education programs.”
Dawson was selected as a Champion of Change for his work with arts outreach and education programs at the Clark State Performing Arts Center, including a performance series for students called the Exploration Series; the Clark Community Cultural Consortium, an organization of 43 cultural and arts providers; Arts Alive, a Kennedy Center partners in education team with Wittenberg University, the Clark County Educational Service Center, and the Springfield City School District; Children’s Hour, a free series on Wednesdays in June; and a national award-winning program called Project Jericho.
Since receiving the Champion of Change designation, Dawson has continued to embrace innovation and created the New Media degree for Clark State that blends the arts with technology. “I have worked towards creating pathways for secondary school students to get credits in high school programs that blend the arts and technology that can be applied to college,” he said. “I was also a faculty panel expert for secondary career-technical alignment initiative hosted by the Ohio Department of Higher Education and helped create the visual design and imaging career-technical assurance guides (CTAGs) for the state of Ohio.”
Dawson was recently nominated and became a member of the media arts and visual design and imaging faculty review panels for the Ohio Department of Higher Education to ensure quality and rigor in the transfer and articulation process.
The reunion program will serve as the final Champions of Change event. It will be held December 5 at the U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, D.C. and focus on all of the collective progress made and how to best sustain momentum on issues impacting the American people.
“This is a tremendous honor. I'm very thankful,” said Dawson. “I hope I will continue to make Clark State proud with my work in arts education.”