GMU goes full

George Mason University

George Mason Universitys STEAM Table forum will present three theatrical works in February, March and April, relating science and the arts, as part of a season of innovation.

A few years ago, Daniel Beck, a member of the board of the now defunct Theater of the First Amendment at George Mason University, mentioned a pressing and growing problem that involved both the arts and sciences.

Beck, who works for Boeings Office of Defense, Space & Security, worried out loud to fellow board members about the retirements of what he called the creative working class.

According to Beck, many of the younger Boeing employees, although highly skilled and knowledgeable in their various fields, were far too specialized. Unlike their older, now retiring counterparts, they lacked exposure to the liberal arts, which combined with the sciences and math seems to engender more creative, often out-of-the-box thinking.

Among those actively listening were Kevin Murray, program manager for and faculty member of GMUs School of Theater as well as an actor, and Rick Davis, executive director of GMUs Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas and former co-artistic director of The Theater of the First Amendment.

Also a playwright, Beck, Murray said, is someone who truly gets it, gets the symbiotic connection between the arts and sciences and the need to reintegrate them in education.

Murray and Davis not only heard Becks concerns but also acted on them, thanks in part to a generous gift from Boeing dedicated to exploring ways to significantly include the Arts in educations growing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) movement, turning it into STEAM.

One of their first steps was to establish an ongoing The STEAM Table forum (whimsy intended in naming). Sponsored in addition by GMUs College of Visual and Performing Arts, a goal of the STEAM Table, which has a website (www.steamtable.org) and newsletter, is to bring together individuals and organizations that are engaged in varied aspects of the arts and sciences to share their thinking.

For Davis, 57, who also teaches theater, directs and acts, the STEAM movement is not looking backward but a sorely needed return to something that worked better than todays too frequent demand to teach to the test.

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GMU goes full