Liberal Arts Week: Celebrating the Arts & Humanities

Liberal Arts Week banner that was used to promote the event. | Courtesy of Washtenaw Community College

by WILLOW SYMONDS
Contributor

Washtenaw Community College celebrated the arts and humanities with a week of virtual events touching on careers, social justice, life skills and more.

The recent Liberal Arts Week highlighted the career paths taken by those who studied social sciences, the fine arts, and the humanities. The week featured two to three Zoom sessions per day.

Those with a career focus included a panel of professionals who discussed careers ranging from marketing to fundraising, psychiatry, legal and social work. The wide differences between the career titles surprised some participants, but the presenters who hold them were all liberal arts majors. Each talked about how that shaped their backgrounds.

Amanda Smith is associate director of development for cancer programs at Michigan Medicine. “As a fundraiser, we tell stories,” she said. “We tell stories to inspire people to donate, to care about the issue we’re raising money for.”
Melissa Weber, is a paralegal for UAW (the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America) It’s extremely important to be open-minded in my field. […] Being patient with yourself and your clients will really make a difference in your law office or wherever you go.”
Charmin Archer is an elementary school teacher who does a lot of community work, especially for kids and social activism. “Problem-solving is huge because problems are gonna happen,” she said. “My liberal arts degree helped transfer my learned skills to different fields.”
Laura Hirschbein, a psychiatrist, agreed. People who majored in the Liberal Arts “have an approach to humanity that takes a while for other people to realize,” she said.

Another career-oriented session featured panelists from marketing, media and theater arts.

In this session, radio hosts, artistic directors of plays and musicals, and counselors talked about what courses they thought were most helpful, how to get into their business, and what their favorite part of their job is.

Nick Kessler, a radio host in Poughkeepsie, NY, graduated from WCC with a general communications degree.

“Some very crucial courses [for careers in the liberal arts] are anything public speaking,” Kessler said. “Interpersonal communication is big too, because just being able to speak to people is important.” The radio station likes for us to blog, he said. “Creative writing courses helped me do that tremendously. You might think I just get on the show and start talking, but there is so much writing in my job. Improv classes are good because I do have to improvise on the show.”

Other panelists included Nicole A. Brown, mayor pro-tem, City of Ypsilanti; Patty Griffin, director of conduct, conflict resolution and COVID Response at the University of Michigan; and David Wolber, producing artistic director of Ann Arbor’s Theatre NOVA.

Keynote speakers throughout the week included Christopher Shepherd, a former WCC student who is now a consultant for Boston Consulting Group, a global business strategy consulting firm; Yodit Mesfin-Johnson, president and CEO of Nonprofit Enterprise at Work; and Madison Rally, promotions director for Cumulus Media Ann Arbor and co-host of 102.9 W4 Country’s Breakfast with Bubba show.