I have not threaded on the Twitter machine in awhile.

So, I went to a fundraising event for a local high school's Fine Arts program last night. It was incredible--young students played music, sang, danced, made people laugh. /1

Before the show kicked off, the superintendent of the public schools, a woman, gave a warm and incisive intro--about the history of the program, the value of the arts, etc. Which are talks that maybe we are used to, but moving nonetheless. /2

Then she proceeded to thank the people who, over the many years, made the whole thing possible. Principals, Board of Education members, Fine Arts Board members...and the key? Almost exclusively women. /3

The event was held at a local country club, where I often am asked to attend other meetings and events related to higher ed. When I think of the fight institutions like mine have (like so many others), I'm too often in rooms filled with the language of exclusively men. /4

The difference between last night and those other meetings is linguistically startling. Last night's event was not the usual chum in the water attracting the "disruption" "the future of..." "innovation" "nimble" "flexibility" "value" "entrepreneurial" shark feeding fest. /5

Look, as an admin in arts & humanities in public education, I put my feet on the floor every day expecting a fight for survival. A fight to preserve an actual infrastructure for the arts, not just nice intro speeches at events.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I saw it again last night /6

Whether we're talking the arts, gun control, climate change, income disparity...and on and on and on...it's all obvious and has been to many for a long time before I ever arrived on this planet. We need more women building and running things. /7

That's who built my evening last night that I enjoyed so much while being away from the other crowd that can't view education (see: the world) beyond the honey located in a hive of buzzwords.

Maybe this is dumb and obvious. The show was great though. Thanks for listening. /finis

And when I say we need more women building and running things, I'm talking communities of women doing that work together. That's what I saw last night, seeing the results of a long-running effort. /finis2