Bush Foundation names 2015 fellows
The Bush Foundation has announced its fellows for 2015.
The 23 fellows selected this year are from Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. They will receive $50,000 to $100,000 to develop their leadership skills and conduct research.
Among this year's fellows is Sarah Bellamy, co-artistic director of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul.
Bellamy plans to use the fellowship to determine how best to move the struggle for social justice and equity to the forefront of her company's work at a time of social unrest.
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"Whether it's about poverty and the alignment of class and race or if it's about gun violence and police," Bellamy said, "artists have a wonderful opportunity to direct attention and focus to those issues in creative ways that circumnavigate the tendency to debate and instead focus us more on empathy."
Bellamy compared the current political and artistic climate to that of the Black Arts Movement, which gave birth to Penumbra Theatre in the 1970s.
"Our job as a theater company is to be responsive to our community because we have equity at the center of our mission," she said. "Theater has an incredible opportunity to open minds and hearts, but how do we get people to be a little more proactive in some of these issues that need attention?"
Other fellowship winners include:
Eric Mahmoud is the founder and president of the Harvest Network of Schools, which has been successful in helping black students perform on standardized tests. In recent testing, Mahmoud said, African-American boys at the Harvest Prep charter school had a higher proficiency rate than the state average for white students in math and reading. Mahmoud plans to pursue advanced education and training and shadow successful educational CEOs from across the nation to expand his network of schools.
R. Scott Gray is the executive director of the Minnesota Urban League. Gray plans to use his fellowship to become a national thought leader on social enterprise.
MPR News editor for new audiences Toni Randolph contributed to this report.