Faculty Fellow
Wayne Winborne
Jazz, Democracy, and the Common Good: Exploring Interdependence in the 21st Century
Fellowship Area: Public Spaces, Arts, and Civic
Department: Institute of Jazz Studies, Newark
Biography
Wayne Winborne is executive director of the Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS) at Rutgers University-Newark, the largest and most comprehensive archive and library of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world. Winborne is also an assistant professor in the Arts, Culture, and Media department and is a frequent presenter on jazz, art and culture, democracy, civic engagement, racial reckoning, non-profit management, and race and intergroup relations. He has numerous publications and is editor of a three- book series on race and intergroup relations. He is a consultant to corporate, small business, and non-profit clients on strategic planning, fund development, DEI, multicultural marketing, and dialogue facilitation. Winborne has produced several recordings for the MaxJazz, HighNote, Satchmo, and Savant labels.
He has been honored by the Feminist Press with its Crossing Borders award, the Brooklyn Club of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Inc., with its Man of Distinction award, the Asian American Federation of NY with its Spirit of Asian America award, by FraserNet with its Corporate Professional of the Year award, and by the National Council for Research on Women with its Diversity Champion Award. Read more here.
Fellowship Project
Jazz celebrates and reflects the best of the American ideal, serving as both a metaphor and teaching tool for democracy, where the individual has equal attention to and concern for the collective. Therefore, it is both a model and a metaphor for democracy and democratic practice. Through a series of community conversations and performances, Wayne plans to use jazz as a catalyst to inspire and teach participants to find meaning, reconcile seemingly contradictory positions, and identify new pathways for collaboration and problem solving for the common good. Specifically, there will be a series of community conversations/listening sessions during which participants will learn the best practices of effective dialogue, problem-solving, and collaboration in the context of mutually agreed upon values and goals. Framed by the 250th anniversary of the formation of the United States, we will then develop a values statement - a “Declaration of Interdependence” that reflects the identification of common values, goals, and opportunities for collaboration and cooperation. Participants will be asked to identify specific projects, activities, or individual actions that they will undertake following the conclusion of the fellowship.
This project seeks to address multiple challenges to democracy today, specifically the lack of civic engagement in public life, the erosion of trust in democratic institutions and principles, and the too often absence of a belief and interest in the common good. It seeks to teach students and citizens the catalytic and connecting role the arts, especially jazz music, can play in showing us how to work, live, and play together and to illuminate our commonalities and celebrate our differences, all in the service of identifying and pursuing the common good.