{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/862b855k0k/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Oral History Interview with Dr. Karen Chandler"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2025-05-31"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewer"]},"value":{"en":["Childress, DaNia, 1991-"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["Chandler, Karen, 1956-"]}},{"label":{"en":["LCDL Collection"]},"value":{"en":["Director's Cut Oral History Project"]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eDr. Karen Chandler was born in 1956 and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. In this interview she discusses her career in music education as a classically trained pianist, her tenure as the director of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, and her work in arts management at the College of Charleston after leaving the Avery Reseach Center.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Media Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral Histories"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Topical"]},"value":{"en":["Archives and education;African American leadership;Music in education;Museums and community"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston (S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date Digital"]},"value":{"en":["2025-05-31"]}},{"label":{"en":["Digitization Specifications"]},"value":{"en":["Mp4 deriviative audio and video created with Davinci Resolve. All archival preservation files are mp4s."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright © College of Charleston Libraries.\u003c/p\u003e"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eDr. Karen Chandler was born in 1956 and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. In this interview she discusses her career in music education as a classically trained pianist, her tenure as the director of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, and her work in arts management at the College of Charleston after leaving the Avery Reseach Center.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright \u0026copy; College of Charleston Libraries.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/311/836/small/arc_1209_ChandlerKaren.mp4_1780507385.jpg?1780507388","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - arc_1209_ChandlerKaren.mp4"]},"duration":6813.738,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/311/836/small/arc_1209_ChandlerKaren.mp4_1780507385.jpg?1780507388","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-cofc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/311/836/original/arc_1209_ChandlerKaren.mp4?1780507372","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":6813.738,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Karen Chandler Interview Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\n Good morning. Can you please state your full name, date of birth and place of birth?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=8.0,13.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nMy name is Karen Chandler. I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, and my date of birth is March 27th, 1956.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=13.0,20.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how familiar were you with Charleston before you came?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=20.0,24.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI actually learned about Charleston and the Gullah Geechee culture from a college mate, Ron Daise. We were at Hampton together, and I remember as freshmen, when we came in, we were talking amongst a lot of friends and they asked where he was from and he said, St. Helena Island. And so over the course of the year, he told me a lot about Gullah Geechee culture. So that's really where I learned about Charleston and the culture.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=24.0,59.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then you mentioned you went to school in Virginia - Hampton University - and you were born in Nashville. Can you talk about the differences or similarities between the different Southern cities with Charleston?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=59.0,70.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYeah. Well, first of all, Nashville is landlocked, so - great rivers around us - but I really enjoyed growing up in Nashville. I grew up in a - now it's actually on the National Register of Historic Places - it's a neighborhood that has had a huge history, and made a huge contribution to history in Nashville. And so, just many great experiences growing up there. But I grew up also around a lot of music. So I, in fact, a few doors up the hill from us where we lived was an organist, a great organist in Nashville; there was a violinist; and a conductor of a small orchestra called Cremona Strings. And myself and many of my friends who grew up there were a part of that orchestra as little kids, and traveled all around. It was just a great, great experience in terms of music, of course, music in my church, First Baptist Church Capitol Hill.\n\nSo I had a rich experience of both music and my work and my involvement in the church that both of my parents instilled in myself and my twin brother and my sister. So it was a great experience growing up in Nashville. When I came to Charleston, I remember probably the first six months that I was here, I felt - I always told people this - I always felt an ancestral pull, and I wasn't sure what that was. I remember thinking a lot about some of the conversations that Ron Days and I had had about Gullah Geechee culture and the fact that there were so many - up to perhaps 40% - of Africans who were forcibly shipped here.\n\nThat made sense to me that this was my ancestral home. So I really enjoyed living here and being a part of the Gullah Geechee culture, but also learning more about it, more details along with what Ron had shared with me as a freshman at Hampton. So both of the cities, they were very different cities. I had very different experiences, but also similar experiences. Obviously my work in music - and particularly with jazz here in Charleston has been a really important part of my growth in my experiences here in Charleston. So music, as you can see, has had a pull on me both in Nashville and in Charleston.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=70.0,257.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd we'll talk more about your Jazz Initiative later, but growing up - as you mentioned music - was that always your favorite genre? Or, what was your favorite genre of music growing up?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=257.0,266.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, growing up I would probably say classical music and gospel; gospel because I heard that in the church, classical because I also heard that in church. But I also studied music. I studied music with one of my mother's best friends who finished Fisk. So I learned a lot about John Work and so many other great musicians who came out of the Department of Music at Fisk. So, early on I learned how John Work sort of blended and melded sort of classical music with the African American spiritual and African American musical idioms, and that registered so well with me. So, I learned very early on some of the music - keyboard repertoire - of John Work when I was 7, 8, 10 years old.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=266.0,339.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then you mentioned Fisk and the Fisk Jubilee Singers. What led you to Hampton with your background in music?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=339.0,345.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYeah. Well, my grandmother was a reference librarian at Hampton for years. My mother grew up in Hampton, Newport news area. So as children, me and my brother and my sister would visit with my parents to her home, to my mother's home actually in Newport News. So I was very familiar with Hampton because my grandmother was reference librarian there. And because both of my parents went to Hampton, my father finished in 1953, my mother went for two years and then transferred and went to Columbia University School of Oral Surgery. So there was just a very, very close connection with Hampton. I did have a music scholarship to go to Fisk, and Fisk was so much a part of my upbringing in Nashville, but I had Hamiltonians all over my family, especially with my parents. So I had a full scholarship to go to Fisk, but ended up at Hampton, and it was a good move for me, but Fisk still has a huge place in my heart in terms of music especially.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=345.0,423.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then what was your professional background before you came to the Avery?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=423.0,427.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, I studied music. I got my bachelor's degree in music education from Hampton, and I went on right after I graduated from Hampton and got a master's degree in music education from Columbia University Teacher's College. So I was really very interested in teaching music; that was sort of my path, and I had sort of felt that way even when I was young - that I wanted to teach music. Teaching was always going to be in my career and experiences. So when I left Columbia, I took my first teaching position at St. Paul's College in Lawrenceville, Virginia. James Russell, who was a Hamiltonian, was the president there, and really was interested in building the music program. There wasn't a degree program in music, but there were choirs. They were affiliated with the Episcopal Church. So the person who had the full-time music position also had responsibility for the church choirs and for being an organist with the church.\n\nSo that was my plan and that was my early part of my career. I left there and missed music a lot, and missed playing. So I went back home for a year and teamed up with my former piano teacher, and we put together a repertoire of four-hand and two-piano literature. Sarah Phillips was her name. I wanted to call her name. She was a very special person in my life, and so I enjoyed that year giving concerts with her. But I then left there and went to the University of Virginia and I was a director of their African-American cultural center. It's called the Luther P. Jackson House. It was there that I was really in charge of envisioning a center that would not only be a student center, but that would also have some responsibility towards programming, cultural programming, for both the university and for the community.\n\nAnd I enjoyed that a lot. There was an interest in programming more arts events at the University of Virginia, so I teamed up with the University Union, which was their larger student affairs and student activities unit. So I did that for several years. And what I realized was I was really backing into what I didn't know then, but know now was a field called “Arts Management”, “Arts and Cultural Management”, particularly, for what I was doing there. So that was interesting. I was also teaching music, and I began to sort of enjoy this experience providing some engagement in terms of cultural programming for two different, but in some ways related constituencies: the community and the university community. And so I became what I now know as an “arts presenter”. And so that was my move from music education into this space. That was, I think, exciting for me to be as closely engaged as I was in the community.\n\nI was always interested in how concerts and public programs worked. I was always fascinated when I was a kid, you know, and we would have recitals, and so I would always have to play on the recitals, but I was always interested in helping my teacher meet the florist who was bringing the flowers in for the recital or setting up the chairs or passing out the programs. I was always interested in the behind the scenes work of how a program - a recital, in that instance - got planned and organized and how sort of magically to me people would fill the seats, how was that done and how was she able to raise the money to plan a recital like that? So that was interesting to me. And I was doing that then at the University of Virginia, and I wanted to continue to do that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=427.0,741.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how did you hear about the opening at the Avery Resource Center for African American History and Culture, and did you have any prior knowledge about the Avery Normal Institute?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=741.0,751.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nSo I learned about the position actually from Valerie Morris, who was the dean - Well, let me back up. Valerie Morris, who was the Dean of the School of the Arts, hired me to come here in 1999 to co-direct the arts management program. Valerie Morris was a mentor of mine - is still a mentor of mine - and so I came and co-directed that program for a couple of years. And I'll never forget, I was in my office one day and the phone rang and it was Dr. Marvin Dulaney. And at the time there was a Starbucks on Calhoun Street, a small Starbucks, and he said, “What are you doing?” He said, “Can you meet me at Starbucks?” And I said, “Sure.” So I went out and met him and he said, “I've been director of Avery” - and I had heard about Avery, but I didn't know much about the Center.\n\nAnd he said - so I had visited prior to this meeting with Dr. Dulaney, and I was intrigued by it, but I didn't know much about what the Center did, its connection to the College - and so, as we were talking, he said, “I'm director there and I really want to go back to the History Department to chair it, but I need somebody who can do the day-to-day work of the center who can direct the center, and would you be interested?” So, I was a little torn, because I really had just arrived - I think maybe two years at the Arts Management program - and was beginning to sort of get my feet wet and establishing a solid curriculum. So really excited about what I was doing there and wasn't sure that I wanted to interrupt that. So I had a conversation with Valerie Morris, the dean, to say, “I want to continue to teach.” And Marvin was very, very accepting and encouraging and supportive of my continuing to teach in Arts Management. And then I did agree to serve as director. So that's how that happened.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=751.0,893.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then what was the political and social climate in Charleston during the time, and did you get support from the College of Charleston during your tenure?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=893.0,901.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, I think the political and social climate at the time for me, I was mostly connected to the community. I think that was my pull to Avery I was beginning - prior to coming, I was beginning - to meet people in the community; I had not done that in the two years that I was in arts management. But now being at Avery, the history of Avery, the obvious community connections that even helped establish Avery, I was really fascinated about having a job that would keep me connected in that way to the community and where the work that we did the community was a part of. And to be able to do that within an academic setting that also had another constituency of which I was a part, and that was the faculty and staff of the College of Charleston. So it was just this really interesting and unique opportunity for me to be able to engage communities both similar but different communities in one job as director of Avery.\n\nSo I enjoyed that. So in terms of the social climate, for me, the social climate was the community of nurturers, I would say. And I think about Lucille Whipper, I think about Marlene O’Bryant Seabrook, Cynthia McCottrey Smith. These were three. There were many who were nurturers of mine as a director. Marvin Dulaney was immensely supportive of the work that I did. And so when I think of the social climate, for me, that's what it was. It was a real nurturing climate for me. I'd say the political climate was a challenging one in terms of Charleston at large.\n\nBut here we had the opportunity to be able to educate the community about Avery, about its history as a school, but more importantly about its history going forward and the engagement involvement of all people in Charleston to this important legacy. So for me, the political climate, while it was challenging, I felt an opportunity as a director to make sure that what Avery had been and what Avery was at that time under my leadership, was accessible to as many people as possible. So that's sort of how I interpreted what the political and social climate was here at that time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=901.0,1111.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd as a follow-up - you’d mentioned community, and we recently opened up an exhibit highlighting the North Stars of the Avery. Who would be your professional and personal North Stars that help guide you, and were your support system?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1111.0,1124.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nThose three that I just mentioned, Lucille Whipper, Marlene O'Bryant Seabrook, and Cynthia McCottrey Smith. They were. Mrs. Whipper was because she had worked here at the College of Charleston and as you know, helped to develop and was really the pioneer to develop the Avery Research Center to get the funding and all the sort of legislative kinds of things that were needed to open the center. She had a perspective that I didn't have elsewhere. So while she was nurturing to me, she was also helpful as a leader and an advocate about how to get things done politically, how to get things done within different constituents, constituencies with the faculty, because she was a part of the faculty of the College of Charleston as an administrator because she was an administrator of the College of Charleston as a community leader because she was a community leader. So her perspective was so important in sort of guiding me in those kinds of ways.\n\nWe were sorores, we were a part of the same sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and so there was a real personal connection and sisterhood that we shared as well. But she was the one - I will never forget this - I was getting ready to start a strategic plan with the staff, and I had studied strategic plans for years. And so she said to me - I went to her and I said, here's sort of the draft of the strategic plan that I have, and here's what I intend on doing when we have our first staff retreat treat. And so because of the connection, the very close connection with the Avery Institute, the strategic plan was going to embody them as well. And so she said, “I know you've read all about those strategic plans and those books that you've studied over the years, and I know you know how to do this. I want to make sure that you also understand that within a strategic plan are people, there are people that are going to have to implement this vision that you have, and it's going to be important for you to get buy-in and your personality, your leadership skills, all those things that will allow people to gravitate to your vision, to understand it and to be accepting of it. And then to buy into it is going to be the most important thing.” She says, “I'm not negating what you study about strategic planning in that book, those books that you've studied over the years, but the people are the most important.” And it was something that as she said it, I remember thinking, “Yeah, of course the people are important,” but it was the way she sort of framed how you get the buy-in.\n\nNo one had shared to me in that way at all. And so I was just enamored with that, and I took it to heart, and the strategic plan was a success. We were able to implement it. But from that point on, every time I taught strategic planning and arts management, I called her name first because I wanted students to know who Lucille Whipper was, but I also wanted them to know that at some point, they, too, are going to have to put that book down and they're going to have to connect with people in order to do whatever it is in that strategic plan they're wanting them to do. So it was just a very human understanding of these things, these strategic plans and fundraising plans and marketing plans. And they're all good, and they're all important, and it's important to know the techniques, but it's also more important to understand the people who are behind implementing those plans. So that was just a fascinating teaching for me from Lucille.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1124.0,1450.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then did you face any barriers not being from Charleston?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1450.0,1458.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nNo, I don't think that I faced any barriers not being from Charleston. I was always reminded I was a “come’yah”, but that was always in jest. I think I did know, and I was always mindful of that. And so particularly in the Charleston Jazz Initiative - and I know we'll talk more about that later - that was - and what was interesting to me was - that I was around three other principles of the Charleston Jazz Initiative who were from here. And though I was sort of the administrator, the director leading the way, it was always important for me to be able to step back and to get the perspective of what Charleston was to those three principals who knew it best. So no, not barriers, but I was always cognizant of the fact that I was a “come’yah”. And there were things that while I had learned about Charleston and about Gullah Geechee culture, learning those was very important. But I did understand that there was a distinct difference, learning that information and being from this very soil. And so it wasn't a barrier for me, but it was certainly a difference and a distinction that I understood and accepted in my work, both at Avery and with the Charleston Jazz Initiative.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1458.0,1583.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how were you able to manage your personal and professional obligations?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1583.0,1588.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWow, that's a big one. That was tough. Avery was an all consuming, it was 24/7. It was a heavy load. I did not at the time - and am not - married, so I did not have a spouse. I did not have children. So I didn't have to navigate those kinds of personal experiences that others had to, in some ways, it made me dive in deeper. So there was probably not a good life-work balance in my life, but I loved this place and I loved all that it meant. And I loved the idea of envisioning its future in the short time that I was here. So it was a difficult and challenging balance. And I will say that in those three short years, I was worn out. I was worn out when I left, but it's a satisfying being worn out. I felt very satisfied in what I had accomplished, but quite a bit of a personal toll in this good work that I did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1588.0,1689.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then can you describe the work of all your relationship if you had one with Dr. Glascoe and Oliver Smalls?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1689.0,1695.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYeah, so I did not know Dr. Glascoe personally. I had met her on several occasions. Of course, I knew of her work as a director, and we met a couple of times, actually, in the DC area, outside of her work here at Avery. So I did not work with her, and I certainly was and had been enamored with all that she did to really put the vision and leadership of Avery on the map. So when I came, Oliver Smalls was on staff, and I knew that Oliver had - was really the first on the scene even before Dr. Glascoe - and was responsible for really beginning to - and I think worked a lot with the Institute as well -  to put some things together for the development of the center. And so Oliver was over the administrative areas, the gift shop at the time, but had had his hands in everything.\n\nThat was Avery. Prior to my coming on board, Curtis Franks was here and he was responsible. We had tours very regularly, and he was responsible for that, was responsible in general for education and museum education as well. So I always enjoyed seeing the result of his installing an exhibition. I always thought he had just such a great eye and just enjoyed the work that he did in terms of music education and museum education. Deborah Wright was here as well, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with Deborah, and I know that she later carried out the Avery Messenger. I think we'll probably talk about that later. Georgette Mayo, I think, came later. Yeah. DaNia Childress\n\nYes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1695.0,1839.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nYes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1839.0,1839.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nYes. Karen Chandler\n\nYeah, Sherman Pyatt was here. Sherman Pyatt was - our archivist enjoyed working with him as well, so I remember our having just a lot of archival work to do, and there was just a backlog of collections that needed to be archived. So that was a challenge early on. And so Sherman and I work along with Dr. Delaney because even though Dr. Delaney was now over, and I talked about this early as chair of the history department, and I pretty much ran things day to day, and he supported my doing that. But we came together for large projects. So he was very, very instrumental in working with myself and Sherman in terms of the archives and trying to get a lot of those collections that were backlogged, archived. I know at the time with the rest of the staff, Dr. Delaney and I worked closely on grants. There was a big NEH grant that we worked on together and sort of the formalizing some of the fundraising roles of Avery. And","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1839.0,1925.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nThen what was your process in gaining funds for the building renovations while maintaining funding for programs, collections and exhibits?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1925.0,1934.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, Dr. Delaney was really responsible for that because when I came on board, the renovations, and the money for the renovation,  had already happened. So I think there was a Ford Foundation grant that was already in motion, and some of the renovations were already in motion. I worked with him too, kind of finalize the last pieces of the renovation for the auditorium. And one was the Houston Conwell piece; that was a temporary insulation for Spoleto Festival that we needed to remove from the floor. And so all the lighting and real crafty sort of details in the auditorium - I was sort of responsible for that. But much of the funding had already been taken care of by Dr. Delaney. So I didn't really have a role in that because that had already been in motion.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=1934.0,2004.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd how were you able to, with the auditorium, get that together? You mentioned Spoleto in that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2004.0,2010.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYeah, that was another sort of co-leadership item that Dr. Delaney and I worked on together. That was tough because the Houston Conwell installation was, first of all, it was an amazing piece, and I personally, I knew that we could not keep it here, but I was personally so connected to it. I wanted it to stay. But in order for the auditorium to be accessible and to be of use for some of the things that we had envisioned, we knew that it was going to have to go, and it was really meant to be a temporary installation; the material was not of such that it would've been a permanent insulation. So we worked together. Dr. Delaney and I worked together. There were members of the Institute Board who, as well, worked with us - Mr. DeCosta, who was very, very instrumental in these renovations - we worked alongside each other. And you know, there were, I remember, conversations about how we would maintain - I wanted to maintain - the brick, but how we could do that and still have that space be an important gallery space. And so that's where Curtis Franks came in. And I remember us, he and I, having conversations about that, because with so much of the exposed brick that was sort of going to limit the amount of space that would be there to install an exhibit. So we had lots of conversations about that. So yeah, there were lots of details. And so we had to think a lot about all of the sort of purposes of that space.\n\nYes, that space as a big public space, how many chairs could we get in there? And what style of a room could we set up and shape? What would it be like as a conference style room? What was it like I just mentioned as a gallery space, and were there acoustic kinds of issues that we needed to think about with the exposed brick or just the room itself? All of those kinds of questions and details had to really be thought through. So even though that was sort of the last of the renovations, that took a great deal of my time. So pretty much for my entire tenure, those three years, we worked a lot on those kinds of details. Wrapping up that renovation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2010.0,2215.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then, what role did the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture play in your administration?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2215.0,2221.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, the Avery Institute played a huge role. When I first came on board, it really was the Institute that had been the leadership, if you will, behind the beginnings of the Avery Research Center. So there were still - when I came onboard, there were still - people on the Board as a part of the institute membership who had roles and important functions. I remember Elmore Brown was still helping to collect, I never had a chance to meet Eugene Hunt, but who I know spearheaded the archival collecting. But Elmore Brown was still doing some of that. A part of what I had to do was to work both with Elmore, with Sherman Pyatt, and the rest of the Institute board in terms of archival collecting. Lois Simms was the editor of the newsletter - I think it was the Avery Bulletin, I believe it was called at the time - and so a part of what Dr. Delaney had wanted me to do coming in as with my background in arts management, was to begin to sort of think more about marketing and promoting Avery and how could we do that? And so coming up with a different kind of newsletter made sense for us. But Lois Simms was already doing the newsletter. So a large part of my work in those three years was I sort of allowing the Research Center to take on the functions that the Institute had been doing over the years.\n\nWe talked a lot about how Avery Research Center was growing up. It was developing into a full grown adult, and so not a baby anymore. And so the Institute that had been nurturing it in its early years could slowly move away from their roles, because now we were professionalizing those roles with the Research Center. So there was a lot of working together, but then also allowing the Research Center to begin to fully adopt and assume the roles that the Institute had had. So that was tough, because I know with Ms. Simms, that newsletter was her baby.\n\nAnd so in instances like that, it's tough to sort of embrace some newness, and she understood that, but I think it was a little difficult for her to let go of that. So we worked hard. I worked hard at forging the relationships. What Lucille Whipper had talked about earlier, you want people to sort of get on board with your vision, and when they do, they will better understand that the vision now is for something like an Avery Messenger as opposed to the bulletin. And so that was the working together with the Institute, I think probably was one of my favorites, because I enjoyed the melding of the two. It was also challenging as well. But that was probably one of the most, I think, beneficial parts of my leadership. And if I think about how we were able to sort of professionalize those roles with the research center, it was during that time that that was able to happen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2221.0,2484.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then as a follow up, how would you describe the impact of the Avery Normal Institute? You talked about missing before in the role of the Avery race in your work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2484.0,2492.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nOkay, say that again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2492.0,2493.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nHow would you describe the impact of the legacy of the Avery Normal Institute and the role of some of the alumni Avery rights in your work?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2493.0,2502.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nOh, well, a large part of it, first of all, was it was important for me, for those who had given collections and who were students at Avery Normal School and many who were a part of the institute who had given collections. It was important for me for those collections to be prioritized. And that was a challenge to do - one, because there were other collections that were important to be prioritized as well, and I know Lucille Whipper’s was a collection that we needed to make a priority. So I would say that my understanding and my knowledge of how important the Avery Normal School was, where we were as a research center, and the importance of the Institute of helping to forge that relationship with those who were students here, it was important for me that what they had given - what they as students had given in terms of their collection, what they as institute members had given as a part of their collection - that those would be priorities in the work of the center.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2502.0,2594.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how are you able to network with other organizations and get their support for the Avery?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2594.0,2600.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI think that even when I began in the field of arts presenting and arts management, one of the things that I enjoyed doing and that I was pretty good at was forging partnerships. And so there was just always something that was natural to me, and that always seemed to make sense to me. I remember teaching students in arts management about the “four Ps” in marketing: the “place” - how important the place is in marketing - and the “price” of a ticket. And so anyway, there were these four P's, but I added a fifth P. And the fifth P was “partnerships”. And I always felt that in promoting whatever you're doing, it was important to gain partnerships with other people. One, it had the potential to reduce costs. First of all, it had a great potential of bringing in an audience that another organization had as a part of their constituency that we may not have. And so the possibility that you can increase an audience by partnering with another organization was huge to me was, and so I sought that. That was just kind of a natural thing to do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2600.0,2697.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWhoever we would bring to do a book signing - an author, to do a book signing - it just always made sense that whatever the discipline was that we made that connection with an academic department at the College of Charleston to co-sponsor or an organization in the community to co-sponsor. So co-sponsorship was a huge, huge part of the public programming that we did at Avery, and really throughout much of Avery's public programming work. But we did, during my years and Dr. Delaney's years, a lot of public programming and partnering with other organizations, both in academic departments in College of Charleston and outside community organizations was vital.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2697.0,2752.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how did you manage staff changes and reorganize Avery?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2752.0,2761.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI think for my time as director, we didn't really make a lot of staff changes. I came in with the staff that I had mentioned earlier with Curtis Franks, Oliver Smalls, Deborah Wright, Sherman Pyatt, and then we had a wonderful group of graduate students and undergraduate students who worked, particularly graduate students who worked in the archives and in the reading room. So for me, there wasn't a lot of changes in terms of the archives except for the graduate students who worked there. And we needed them because we needed a lot of work in terms of archiving many of the collections later. And I do remember having conversations with Marvin about really beefing up the staff in terms of that, and later Georgette Mayo and joined as a processing archivist, I believe that was her title at the time.\n\nSo while that change in the archives did not happen under my leadership, it was a part of what, when I left, I conveyed to Marvin that I knew that we needed much, much more in terms of staffing, in terms of archiving many of the backlog collections. I think the work of museum education probably had much more of my attention because there were these sort of distinct areas. There were the public tours - and at the time, you could just walk in and get a tour. There was the installing of exhibitions and all that went with that; opening receptions; public talks; materials, curricular materials. So that was a whole very important part of museum education. And then the connections that Curtis Franks had already established in the community with MOJA, the Juried Art exhibition, and those kinds of things that we were involved in. So there was a lot going on in terms of museum education.\n\nAnd we didn't have the staff for Curtis Franks to be available for somebody who just walks in the door and wants a public tour, and he's here in the Cox Gallery installing an exhibition that needs to be up in two days. So just sort of balancing all of that was difficult with that particular position. And that was another sort of recommendation I took to Dr. Dulaney that at some point we needed to think, we didn't do it while I was director, but at some point we needed to think about how very different those roles are and what to do about it. But it was becoming increasingly difficult, I think, for a Curtis Franks to be able to do all of those. And then, I mean, just the exhibitions themselves had so many possibilities and so many angles to sort of maneuver in. And it was just a lot.\n\nWe all were doing a lot of work with little time. I think the marketing pieces I handle, the fundraising pieces - I handled the gift shop was something that Oliver did and I felt was important. And the community and the college, I think, enjoyed having it here. But given the other functions of Avery, that became increasingly difficult to sustain, and so I think at some point later, that was removed entirely. So yeah, those were some of the, at least in my leadership, those were some of the challenges of operating Avery. Those were some of the kinds of things that I've worked with staff about. And those were some of the recommendations for future growth that while it didn't happen during my administration, I took to Dr. Dulaney. And those things I think were dealt with and handled, and titles were changed, and some functions of positions were sort of either removed or kind of moved around a little bit. So I would say that that was sort of the essence of my work with staff and how positions and their functions changed over time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=2761.0,3114.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then can you discuss your all history projects and important of capturing first person narratives?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3114.0,3121.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, my oral history project was really the Charleston Jazz Initiative. And I'll say, I'll answer that question because I know you want to kind of want to talk a little bit more about the Jazz Initiative. But what I loved about being the director of Avery was that I was learning as I was doing. And what I learned was that there were likely collections in the community that people had that involved music and the arts. And I was really interested in sort of rounding out the archival collections that were here at Avery with some that embodied the arts. And so what that meant was to conceive of how we would start a collection in the arts that certainly included oral histories. And so the Charleston Jazz Initiative was, when it was started in 2003, really was not meant to be a formal project. We were sort of answering a call of the administration, Sylvia Gamboa, who I did think she did some summer programming, but had received a grant from the Humanities Council to do a jazz retrospective.\n\nAnd so she came to me and asked if I would maybe show the Jenkins video that Beryl Dakers at SC ETV had produced or some other program. She just asked me if I would put something together. And I had recently met Jack McCray, who was at the Post and Courier, and I followed his writings in the Post and Courier and was just always enamored with his writing, and loved his writing. And I had met him, and I knew his involvement with jazz. And so I called him and asked if he would work with me and put an event together. And so we did that, and we put together a panel – he moderated a panel - and that event, which was, I think, March 23rd, 2003, was meant to be this one-off program as a part of this college-wide jazz retrospective. And Lonnie Hamilton, George Kenny, the late Bob Ephraim, the late Raymond Rhett, and Oscar Rivers were a part of that panel, jazz panel, because they had known about the Jenkins Orphanage Bands.\n\nLonnie had actually played with the bands, and we thought it would be interesting to have them sort of share their stories. And so we did that, and that's actually at the end of the program. So many people came up to us and said, “You all ought to keep that going.” And then as we thought about it, we thought perhaps this might be a project, a short-term project, where we would gather oral histories where we would, well, we didn't even really decide then that we wanted to start a collection. The collections just kind of emerged from the oral histories as they normally do. Public programming - we would do an event a year to sort of keep the college and the community engaged about what we were doing. And the fourth rung was to inspire creative work by artists. And so that's what we did. And so the oral histories was just a huge part of that effort. So my work in oral histories really emerged from that project - the Charleston Jazz Initiative, which we're still doing to this day.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3121.0,3426.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nI think, as you discussed what led to the creation of the Charleston Jazz Initiative, I wanted to do a follow up that was like, how can music and the arts be blended? And telling the history of South Carolina education, because you’d also mentioned Jenkins Orphanage.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3426.0,3439.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYeah, for sure. And it's not just jazz. Ann Caldwell has done so much in terms of spirituals, and there have been - I've contributed to a book on Porgy and Bess that Harlan Green edited. So there is so much in terms of a lot of music and arts, the literary scene. It's just been ripe with brilliant writings. And so all of that is a part of, and all of that was why, I wanted to capture that part of our collecting, Avery's collecting experience. I wanted to make sure that we had sort of a well-rounded archival collection. And so the Jazz Initiative just happened to be the project that sort of tipped that off. But even within the Jazz Initiative, we learned a lot about classical musicians. Jazz musicians aren't just only jazz musicians, they're musicians. And so they play all kinds of music. And so we did learn about Edmund Thornton Jenkins, who was Reverend Jenkins, the founder of the Jenkins Orphanage. We learned of his background in music – first, and mainly, as a classically trained musician. So I'm excited; even with the Jazz Initiative, that there's several other music angles that we were able to pursue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3439.0,3559.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then what role does Avery have in supporting the Charleston community?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3559.0,3565.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI think Avery started out really in the community. And so I think Avery over the years has a very, very strong reason to keep community connected. It grew out of the community. Lucille Whipper wasn't able to do this alone. And so I think the very essence of the institute, another conversation that I had with her about the importance of the Institute as a separate nonprofit that continues to exist and support the work of the research center and how that Institute should always be in existence to support, to support Avery. And that is then the community connection to the Research Center. And so just like the Institute, of those early years when I was trying to merge the two, and in the early years, their work of actually collecting for the Center, but now they're working, supporting the collections of the Center, that community role is just absolutely vital. And I remember conversations with Lucille Whipper about how structurally and organizationally, it's important to have an Institute that's separate, that's separate, but that has a mission of nurture and support for the Research Center. So that community connection is inherent in the founding of Avery, but is inherent in the ongoing work of the Avery Research Center.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3565.0,3705.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how did you manage teaching while working at the Avery?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3705.0,3710.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nHow did I manage teaching while working at the Avery? Well, I made sure that I didn't have too many courses to teach, and those courses were always usually taught after hours. So I always did, I think it was a one day a week, 5:30 to 8:15 class. So it made one day of the week for me, extremely long. But I did manage to not have Tuesday, Thursday classes or Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes. So I was able to manage it well. But what I ended up doing was thinking about how sort of blended my teaching could be with the work that I was doing. And so I developed the first course academic course at the College of Charleston for Avery, and I'm trying to remember the name of it now, but the title was something to do with cultural leadership at the Avery Research Center or something like that.\n\nThe idea was for Avery to be a laboratory for graduate students, I think, was it graduate and undergraduate? I think it was mainly graduate students, might've been undergraduate and graduate students, but a laboratory where they could learn about how Avery, the leadership of Avery and how that works and how Avery operates as a research center. And so for me as the director, it was important for me to be the professor of that course because what they were learning was how myself both leads and engages all that Avery does, but also how I assist the staff in all the functions of Avery. So I talked a lot about all the things that I had primary responsibility for: the strategic planning and budgeting and fundraising and marketing. But then they would learn from Curtis Franks, and so they would learn about installing an exhibition, the kinds of ancillary programs that were a part of that exhibition. They learned about the public tours and the importance of that for our engagement with the community, with tourists.\n\nAnd so each component of Avery and each person who had a role on the staff had a class to teach in terms of the work that they did. And I really enjoyed that class. And I think we taught that class probably for about five years - actually more than five years - because I remember Dr. Dockery teaching that class, maybe in some of - one or two of - her first years here at Avery. So for me, as a teacher and as an arts management and cultural management teacher, I was really interested in our students learning. One, I wanted to make sure that they knew about Avery, so I wanted them to get them here. But I also wanted them to know there are different types of arts and cultural institutions, you know, and in arts management, we oftentimes talk about the theater and the concert hall and the gallery space, the nonprofit gallery space, the for-profit gallery space, the museum.\n\nBut I wanted them to also know that there are other places like the Avery Research Center that have a little museum as a part of it, a museum function, an archive function that's a little different from their work in arts management, but still a very interesting part of a center's function and purpose, both academically and within the community that I wanted them to know and understand, because you never know where they may end up. They may end up here, they may end up at directing a center like this. And so it was important for them to learn all these aspects, the gift shop at the time. So museums have gift shops, and so it just seemed to me to be a course, this was just a natural for me. And so I enjoyed developing that course and teaching that course over the years. I still wish we could have it, because I think a part of what arts management is sort of learning by doing, we're all practitioners. And so to learn what you do in your role is an important teaching element. And I enjoyed combining the two.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=3710.0,4050.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nCan you discuss the Karen Chandler Arts and Cultural Management Endowed Scholarship?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4050.0,4056.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYes. Well, that was an honor; a donor in arts management, Judith Allen - who was an arts presenter for many, many years - I remember coming along as an young arts manager and learning about some of the women, and the very few women, in the field of arts presenting, and Judith was one of those. So I learned about her very, very early on. She was the CEO of the Blumenthal Art Center in Charlotte very early on. Early on in my experience, I knew how important she was to the field – nationally, to the field of arts presenting. And so we became really, really close. And she taught in arts management, and we shared stories – she's of Italian ancestry, and so she had very, very interesting stories of her challenges as an Italian CEO of Blumenthal, and just how difficult it was for her, difficult, but also obviously many, many successes as a woman - but how challenging that was, back in the Sixties with her beginning as a woman in this field. So she had funded several programs in arts management and was excited about our direction in terms of graduate education and arts management. And I was teaching - Avery was one of those courses and - and so, I think she felt that the graduate arts and cultural management extension of the program needed to be really enhanced. And she was excited to see my role as a part of not only directing that effort, but teaching in that program and decided to endow a scholarship in my name. So I'm very honored and blessed to have had her do that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4056.0,4199.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then I think you may have already touched on, but did you have any barriers in implementing some of her goals with “this is the way it’s already been done”? You were the fourth director, at the time, of Avery; so did you have any challenge, like, “This is how we've always done it”?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4199.0,4215.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI wouldn't say there were barriers in the work that I - well, yeah, funding. Funding was one that was a challenge. And when I mentioned the role that Curtis Franks played as sort of the public tour guide, the museum educator, and I say museum educator in addition to installing exhibitions, there - it's part of that, but museum education is a much broader function. So I think a barrier was to not have, one, the people - so the personnel - to be able to fulfill each one of those roles. It was clear that there needed to be one person for all those three roles that he played.\n\nSo, we didn't have the staff because we didn't have the funding for the staff. So yeah, that was a huge barrier in moving things forward. It was a huge barrier, too, in terms of making sure that my staff had a good life-work balance. It was a challenge. It was a challenge. We did it - we loved doing it - but yes, there were challenges and barriers, and it was sort of tough to do it all. So at the same time that there were three people, there was one person doing three of those jobs, the same was true in the archives. And so at the time, I don't believe, no, at the time, I don't think Sherman... there wasn't a processing archivist, at the time. We used graduate students for that function, but there needed to have been a staff that he had. But there were - the barriers were - there wasn't funding for that.\n\nSo a large part of that too, I understood as “you're building a Center, and so not all the time are you going to have money - just a big pot of it - do all the things that you need to do in order to make these roles happen. It did take a long time though, because it took probably 15 years or so, or maybe longer. But those were huge barriers. And I think at this point in Avery, as I look at the staff and the funding, it's so good to see that those things are in place much, much, much more so than they were many years ago when I was here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4215.0,4401.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd you already touched on it, but I don’t know if you wanted to go into a little bit more detail - so, you talked about the Avery Bulletin. What led to the Avery Messenger newsletter style?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4401.0,4409.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nYeah, yeah. The Avery Messenger was something I really enjoyed doing, and it was a great vision. If there was one thing that I think that the staff sort of came together very well in doing, and that was envisioning the messenger, Curtis Franks was the one who sort of pinned the title and with good reason. It was the newsletter and magazine of the, or news piece of the Jenkins Orphanage after it had been established, I believe, by Crumb, if I'm not mistaken. So to adopt that title, “Messenger”, was an important one for us, to making that connection. But it was also our first really, really solid marketing piece that we now had to give to donors, to potential donors that we now had to give to the community to sort of talk more about it in more detail in interesting ways, visually, about the work that we were doing. And so we were all excited about that, so all hands were on deck. Deborah Wright later took that on as her baby, and I'm just so glad that it's still in existence. It was a lot to produce as those kinds of newsletters, news magazines, but they were important. I felt that they were important to the marketing arm, the promotional arm of Avery.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4409.0,4533.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then can you tell us a little bit more about your work in planning the 50th anniversary of the Avery High School closing?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4533.0,4540.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, I actually didn't do much of the planning for that. I was Leila Potts Campbell was responsible for a lot of that planning, but that really came from the Institute, the Avery Institute and Leila worked on that together. So I was in a supportive role because, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that was summer 2004 - so I was also transitioning back to arts management at that time. But I remember it. I was at the celebration, but in terms of planning, no, I was just a supportive role.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4540.0,4584.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then you mentioned, what was your vision for Avery when you began and then when you left?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4584.0,4589.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, I think the vision for Avery that I had when I first came over time, I remember coming here, and I remember Dr. Dulaney and I have having a long conversation about what was needed. And so I remembered probably hearing the word “clean-up” in some of what he communicated to me, you know - making more defined the roles of the Research Center and the Institute. There was also an Avery Advisory Board. So there were essentially two governing, three really governing entities of the Avery Research Center, the Institute Board, the Avery Advisory Board. And because we're part of the College of Charleston, the College of Charleston's board was a governing board for us. So navigating those three boards. And there wasn't much to navigate in terms of the College of Charleston's board except to know them, as I did, and to interact in ways that we might in terms of funding or just communicating our needs and that kind of thing.\n\nBut the day-to-day functioning between the two boards was mainly the Avery Advisory Board and the Institute Board. So I remember coming in early on and trying to understand the two different roles of those boards. But then sort of the vision for that, as I learned about the functioning of the two boards, was at some later point there probably would not be a need for the Avery advisory Board. They kind of came out of the College's role with Avery or connection to Avery. And that in fact, later did happen. I don't think the Avery Advisory Board is still operating.\n\nSo while there wasn't really a vision, I think as I worked, I felt that at some point that would not be needed. And sure enough, as I left, and I think I may have said that to Dr. Dulaney as I left, that there probably would not be, at some point, a need for that board. I think also the vision was a marketing vision - that I'd run into people who would say, “Well, I didn't even know Avery existed,” or...you know. So it was important to have a marketing vision and plan as to how we would promote Avery to lots of different constituencies: to community members; to people who grew up here who had never come to Avery; to students at the College of Charleston, undergraduate, graduate; faculty and staff - how faculty could utilize this place for their classes. I remember there was always an ongoing class in art history, someone who I think taught African sculpture and would always use the collections of African sculpture here at Avery. So how, more, we could use different disciplines and different faculty to connect with Avery and their academic work;  tourists. So I think the marketing vision and promoting Avery was that vision developed. But I do remember coming into Avery, realizing that in fact needed to happen. \n\nI just thought of something I want to share because it is a good example of what I'm talking about, and also how I learned a little bit more about how to market. So I'm forgetting.... There were two donors of Avery, and they lived on Trad Street, and they had this amazing collection of Benin sculpture, and I had gone over their house one day. It was during the holiday, the Christmas holiday. And so they had all this amazing sculpture just all over the home. They were in the bathroom, and they were tall sculpture, small sculptures, and they put a Santa hat on one.\n\nAnd I was just sort of enamored with how these priceless sculptures were just kind of ingrained in their home in every corner of each room in their home. It was just really kind of neat to see that there wasn't this one place that they exhibited or displayed this Benin sculpture. And so anyway, we talked and talked and talked, and as it turned out, they were interested in exhibiting it, and I was interested in having an exhibit of their collection at Avery. And so we talked about that and made plans for that. So I met a person at the Post and Courier who was going to be writing the story about the exhibition. So here we are. We're getting ready to promote this Benin sculpture exhibition from these two supporters and donors of Avery and where in the Post and Courier is the likely place to have this story be written? And, mainly, in the arts and culture section of the Post and Courier. But the person who was writing the story suggested to me, as I talked about how I came into the home and was just fascinated with how they had just really interspersed this Benin culture with every aspect of their home, she said, “No, not ‘Arts and Culture’ section of the Post and Courier. ‘Home and Garden’.”\n\nAnd I said, “Wow.” So,, all of a sudden now, this new section of the paper that I had never pitched a story to ever for anything we were doing at Avery, now seemed to make perfect sense. And I think she even led the story with my story about how interesting the connection between the home and the display of the Benin sculpture that I saw, how that made sense for that section of the paper. So I learned something. I used to share that with students a lot - don't just think that just because you're promoting and marketing arts and culture, that that's the only section of the paper that it needs to actually go in, begin thinking about the narrative and the stories behind what you are exhibiting. So what that led me to understand was  - not all the time well - was that you learn more about what it is that you're exhibiting, that it has many different stories and many different narratives, and that has a lot to do with how you promote whatever it is that you're promoting. In this case, it was the exhibition, but I wanted to mention that because my marketing vision changed, and in fact, I learned a lot over the years. But I did walk into Avery in those early years knowing that we wanted a marketing, both vision and plan. And that did happen with the Messenger and with these other little ways that we sort of thought about marketing what Avery did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=4589.0,5136.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nWhat would you have done if you had access to an unlimited funding stream?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5136.0,5142.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nMore staff. No question. I would have - and I keep using Curtis Frank's I role because it was so, it's such a perfect example of needing three people - but I literally would've separated each one of those functions. So we would've still continued the tours, but there weren't more we could do with the tours. We needed to do a new video, and there were just other angles. There were marketing angles. I wanted to promote much more directly and actively to tourists. We really didn't have the funding to do that. So really separating that. Definitely having had a processing archivist, or two or three processing archivists, under Sherman, to begin processing a lot of the backlog. I think everything else, for the most part, we were pretty much set with the renovation in terms of funding. I think later on there were you all had done some renovations in other parts of the building. But I think using that money for staffing - I wouldn't say necessarily for any type of programming, but definitely undergirding the operational structure and the staffing structure of Avery - is definitely what I would've used that money for.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5142.0,5239.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd what were some of your greatest accomplishments?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5239.0,5243.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nSome of my greatest accomplishments? Well, I would definitely say the Avery Messenger. I think the marketing angle of Avery was an accomplishment. I think the definition that I was able to kind of bring to the Research Center's professionalized role and the Institute, and making those functions distinct and separate, but then allowing the supportive roles of the Institute to be more defined, that was a huge accomplishment. And I'll have to say the Charleston Jazz Initiative, that was and is one of my most interesting accomplishments. One ,because it did so much and it is doing so much because it continues to exist, but it did bring to light a story that had not been fully told about Charleston's role and jazz music in this country in the world. And to know that there were people that came out of this soil and at the Jenkins Orphanage who were not the celebrity band leaders, but who had huge roles as instrumentalists and ensemble musicians to the development of early jazz in this country that we in Charleston had a contribution, a major contribution to that.\n\nAnd that in the history books, and you can look at some of those early jazz history books. There's an acknowledgement of Charleston and a paragraph on page 23, but not the full story. And we are still even grappling with the full story. There's still lots to be told, but to be able to know that we started a project called the Charleston Jazz Initiative that has uncovered these stories, these oral histories of musicians who lots of other musicians knew about. So they knew of Julian Dash and Freddie Green and Kat Anderson, and many here in this community knew their names, but did not know necessarily the huge contributions to jazz in the country and in the world that they made. So that was, still is, I think, one of my best accomplishments that I'm most proud of.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5243.0,5436.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd is there an exhibit and program that stands out?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5436.0,5441.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nAn exhibit or program that stands out? I think that Benin exhibition stands out for the reasons that I mentioned earlier, but also the way that Curtis displayed the sculpture, I always said he just had such an interesting eye. I was always interested in the placement of the sculpture. So I think that one, because there's so many other stories, another story is that was the first time for an exhibition that I actually had to take out more insurance on Avery and I had not had to do that for any exhibition before. So there were a lot of interesting components to planning that and then getting that exhibition off of the ground. So that was one. I used to love the MOJA juried art exhibitions, you know. Always loved how Curtis installed them, so again, sort of the placement of different types of works of art next to the other.\n\nBut I always loved those exhibitions because they featured our own. And nine times out of 10, there was always someone, an artist in the community that we didn't know about whose work was stellar. And so we then learned a lot about those right here in our own community who were part of that juried art exhibition. So not only was were those exhibitions, just great displays of great material, but we were showcasing so many local artists and uncovering the talent and the gifts, artistic gifts of so many local artists. And there wasn’t - I don't think there was – one juried art exhibition that I liked the most, but I remember Elise Amos Goodman, who was the coordinator of MOJA at the time, that was one of the programs that she loved the most. And I remember telling her how we enjoyed being the host of that juried art exhibition for the reasons that I just mentioned.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5441.0,5599.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then what do you want visitors to leave with after visiting Avery?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5599.0,5603.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nSay that again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5603.0,5604.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nWhat do you want visitors to come away with after visiting?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5604.0,5608.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI think what I would like visitors to walk away with when they come to Avery is to understand the importance of this place as a school. So, you know, the larger history of it. But also, how much individual leaders and as a part of a collective - because Lucille Whipper will tell you, she may have been the one that sort of spearheaded it, but she was always quick to say to me, “It wasn't just me,” that there were so many people who I worked alongside - so to walk away with a better understanding of their role in developing Avery. It wasn't easy, and so I'd like them to know that and to know that these people who helped to establish this center have personal connections in many instances because they were students here at the school. And so we have their collections that tell their story of their connection to this place.\n\nSo I think I would like them to leave with a history of what this place was prior to being a research center, the very people who helped to develop it and their stories via their collections that connect them to Avery. But thirdly, how this place can be a resource for so many people, for scholars, for faculty at the College of Charleston and other colleges and universities. So I want them to be able to walk away also knowing not just about the history, but also about how this place today can continue to be a resource for what they do as scholars and academicians and students.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5608.0,5743.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nWhat do you think is an undertold story from the history of the Avery Research Center?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5743.0,5750.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nAn under-told story. I would think sort of an untold story, an under-told story. I would think clearly what we are uncovering with the Charleston Jazz Initiative for sure. But I was always sort of fascinated with learning more about the principals and the teachers at Avery. I mean, I was able to get some of that information. I obviously learned about Dr. Cox and spent many, many times with Cynthia McCottrey Smith, hearing her stories as a teacher. But that would be interesting to know more about, to uncover the leadership at the school at the Avery Normal School, the leadership, both in terms of administrators and as teachers. I'd like to know more about that. But I think one of the untold stories and under-told stories is what's continuing now to be uncovered through the Charleston Jazz Initiative.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5750.0,5838.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nAnd then how has Avery helped foster African American history beyond its doors, with this work with community and cultural organizations?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5838.0,5846.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nSay that one more time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5846.0,5847.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nHow has Avery helped foster African American history beyond its doors, and its work with community and cultural organizations?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5847.0,5855.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, I think we talked earlier about the partnerships, and I think that's an important connection. I think that that has allowed Avery's story to be told, and in any ways, public programming, conferences, that kind of thing that those kinds of partnerships can be told. I think it's a great way for people outside of our walls to learn more about us. I think I remember the conference with Julie Dash - it might've been Patricia Dockery's first or second or third year here - that was a huge undertaking and brought scholars from all over in film and African American history. I think those kinds of that kind of programming, but also the connections that were made through the panelists who gave papers and that kind of thing, I think that helps, too, in connecting those who are outside of our walls - who may be even outside of Charleston - to what Avery is and what Avery does.\n\nWe did sort of the same thing with a Jazz Initiative panel in 2005 and brought jazz scholars from really all over the world; the person who led the largest European jazz archive was here as a panelist. But then what happens is that those people go back and they talk about why they were here, and they begin to talk about the Avery Research Center. So I think having those kinds of conferences partnering with those kinds of scholars really do help to tell the story of Avery. And I remember so many times, some of the jazz scholars that we worked with, they would say, “Oh, I was on a panel in Berlin and I talked about the Avery Research Center and my connection to it as a part of this Jazz Initiative.” So the way in which partnerships are forged through lots of different kinds of academic and scholarly conferences and programs and community and public programs, I think always helps to get the word out about who Avery is and what it does.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=5855.0,6016.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nThen, what led you to leaving the Avery and what have you done since leaving?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6016.0,6021.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nSo what led me to leaving Avery.... I always knew that I was going back to arts management full-time. So a large part of - and this may be a little sort of an anomaly of myself as a director - first, my term was three. I was here for three years and not longer as most directors, but I was also sort of brought here for a specific purpose. And so while I don't think I was necessarily ready to leave at the time that I did, I knew that my work here was temporary. It would be for a period of time. And once I accomplished those goals, then I would move on back to arts management. But I think what sped up that movement is that the arts management program was beginning to sort of think a little bit more about their graduate programs and the connections, the MPA program and the MFA program in creative writing, the connections that they wanted to make on the graduate level to arts management. And they didn't have anyone, arts management didn't have anyone who could direct that, and they were ready to make that happen in 2004 when I left. So I had the challenge of trying to decide - do I not move in that direction and stay here at Avery? I couldn't do both.\n\nSo because I knew that at some point I was going back to arts management anyway, I thought maybe I should go now to help direct those two graduate emphasis and then left. But when I remember talking to Dr. Dulaney about it, and even to this day, he and Valerie Morris would talk about - Valerie was dean of the school, so she was pulling me back from Avery back into arts management, and so she and Dr. Dulaney would always laugh about his getting me over here to Avery and Valerie's sort of losing me to Avery and then her getting me back over to arts management. But I think once I made that decision, it was sort of clear to Marvin that the things that he needed to be done and the reason that he asked me to come here, many of those things were accomplished. And so I felt comfortable leaving knowing that those needs had been taken care of or were at least in motion.\n\nI think we were pretty much done with the renovation; I think the auditorium was completed, or if it wasn't, it was very, very close to completion. By then, we now had the Messenger as a main marketing piece in place. The Jazz Initiative, now, was, when I left, in its first full year, and we talked a lot about how we were, the Jazz Initiative would continue. We'd always have a connection with Avery - still do, because our collection is here. So we knew that even with that, we weren't sort of giving up the Jazz Initiative - that it would just continue. It's just one of the principals would just be over in another academic unit and not over at Avery. So it was a decision I wasn't quite ready to make, but because of the need of arts management and my interest in growing the graduate programs that I made the decision to leave when I did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6021.0,6281.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nThank you. And before I ask my final question, is there anything you'd like to add about your time at Avery or...? Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6281.0,6291.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nI'll just say that I loved coming here on Saturdays, so - probably not a lot of people know, I would think Marvin Delaney knows - but I would just love just getting up and throwing on my jeans and coming up and hanging out in the archives for hours upon hours upon hours. I would sit in the middle of the floor and grab a collection, a box from a collection and just pore through many of the items in that collection, in that box. And I did that many, many times. You asked a question about just sort of how I balance my personal time, so I could have used that Saturday to do other things, and I certainly did have other things I needed to do, but because I enjoyed this job so much and because I learned so much, I felt like a magnet - like Avery was such a magnet that I wanted to learn more and more and more and more. And so I would take Saturdays sometimes, and just come here and just be engrossed in all of what Avery was, all of what these individual boxes of these collections, of these personal stories of people who meant so much to Avery, to this legacy, to Charleston.\n\nAnd I enjoyed sitting in the middle of the floor of the archives and just poring through a lot of that material. So if there's one thing I want to share that probably nobody else knows, as I said, except for probably Dr. Dulaney, it's how this place was such a magnet and how even as a leader, as a director, I was still learning. And I loved being engaged in learning about Avery as I was directing its operations.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6291.0,6440.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nThank you. And then, this is my final question: the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture recently received funding from the Mellon Foundation in recognition of the 160th anniversary of the Avery Normal Institute and the 40th anniversary of the Avery Research Center, under the goal of recognizing the institution's liberatory legacy. In your opinion, how would you describe the liberatory legacy of the Avery, and how can we continue to tell the history of Avery Normal Institute in the Lowcountry?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6440.0,6469.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nWell, I think we continue to tell this history through - obviously this I think as many ways documentaries, books, anthologies edited publications with different people's stories and narratives who were connected to Avery who, and not just those who were students here, and not just those who've had a direct connection, those folk too, but others who've had sort of indirect connections and experiences and the ways in which Avery sort of impacted them. I think a part of the story is, it’s a multifaceted one. And so I think as many different kinds of people who've interacted with Avery over the years; I remember there was - I can't remember his name now - he was an author and scholar from Scotland who would come frequently to do research in the center.\n\nI always said, I mean, he shared, obviously, in publications that he has written, about his work, but that book doesn't talk about his perspective on doing research downstairs here at the center. And so I was just always fascinated by what he thought about what he learned and how he used the work that he researched, how he used that in his books. And so he did what he came here to do, but we don't necessarily have an account of his personal and professional and scholarly connection to Avery. So those kinds of stories to capture those I think would be interesting in sort of telling this full story.\n\nAnd I think in lots of ways, I think what Ranky-Tanky is doing, they're sort of spreading – so, they're not necessarily spreading the history of Avery - but they're spreading sort of the news of Avery's connection to this Gullah Geechee experience. That's a part of Avery. That's a part of what we do here as well. And so I just think the many different ways in which Avery has connected with institutions and with people has been a resource to institutions and to people getting their stories and documenting their stories in many different kinds of ways. As I mentioned, anthologies and books and documentaries and that kind of thing would be good. I don't know if there is sort of a recent documentary of Avery. I know this is going tell sort of the story of leadership of the directors of Avery, but a documentary that sort of tells the story of the school, of how that happened, and the Charles Avery connection - of how the school was formed, contextualized with Reconstruction.\n\nAnd it would just be interesting to hear that full story and to see that full, and hear that full story in a documentary, how the Research Center happened, using snippets, perhaps, of oral histories that Lucille Whipper did to talk about how she was able to, at the funding for the center hearing from institute members about their role as sort of the early Avery Research Center, and then bringing that up to the present and what you guys are doing, and the way in which Dr. Butler is leading the current Avery. I just think a documentary on Avery, with that span of time and span of work and connections with so many different kinds of people, so many different kinds of stories would, really be interesting to tell.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6469.0,6799.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"DaNia Childress\n\nThank you, Dr. Chandler, for your time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6799.0,6801.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836/transcript/94356/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Karen Chandler\n\nThank you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3724/collection_resources/172905/file/311836#t=6801.0,6803.0"}]}]}]}