Jazz for Leadership: What Adminstrators Can Learn From A Century of Jazz
Clinic Synopsis:
Description: This presentation is a practical guide to better leadership, teamwork, and performance in the 21st century. Today, in our complicated, complex, challenging times, we look for a new recipe for team success. By way of a “live” Jazz Quartet, Dr. McCurdy will demonstrate how Jazz Best practices can be applied to a leadership paradigm. The goals are to create better performances and better performers.
Ronald McCurdy
- Biographical Information
Dr. Ronald C. McCurdy is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California (USC) where he served as chair of the jazz department for six years (2002- 2008). Prior to his appointment at USC, he served as Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at USC (1999-2001). He has served as Professor of Music and chair of the Afro-African American Studies Department and served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Minnesota (1990-1999). In 1997, Dr. McCurdy served as Visiting Professor at Maria-Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. In 2001 Dr. McCurdy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Kansas. Dr. McCurdy received his undergraduate degree from Florida A&M University and his Masters's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Kansas.
Dr. McCurdy has continued to tour the Langston Hughes Project. This is a multimedia presentation based on Hughes’ poem, Ask Your Mama. This was Hughes’ social commentary on the struggle for freedom and equality among Africans and African Americans. In 2008 he premiered the orchestral version of The Langston Hughes Project, Ask Your Mama: 12 Mood for Jazz with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with rapper and television actor, Ice-T. The multimedia presentation features a jazz quartet, spoken word, and images from the Harlem Renaissance.
Ken Perlman - Biographical Information
Ken Perlman is a recognized thought leader, consultant, facilitator, and presenter with 20 years’ experience consulting to executives and teams at Fortune 500 companies. Ken has built his expertise in leadership, leading change, program management, communications, culture acceleration, organization design, business process excellence, and technology adoption.
Ken teaches leadership and management on faculty at the University of Southern California. Ken has served the spectrum of organizations – from large, complex, global organizations to smaller start-up teams. His industry experience spans Healthcare, High Tech, Consumer Products, Entertainment, Manufacturing, and Public Sector. Marquee clients include Levi Strauss & Co., Warner Bros., Kaiser Permanente, NetApp, Coty, Nordstrom, Southern California Edison, and Nestlé.
Back