Cultural Expression

Nancy Cook: Cook is a writer and teaching artist. She runs the Witness Project, a program of free creative writing programs in Minneapolis designed to enable creative work by underrepresented voices. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she has been awarded grants from, among others, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the National Parks Arts Foundation, the Mayo Clinic, the Minnesota Humanities Center, and Integrity Arts and Culture. Her work focuses on intersections of geography, history, and cultural heritage, and has been published in dozens of journals, anthologies, and magazines. ; Felicia Cooper: Cooper coordinates and manages the audience experience for the Minnesota Fringe Festival, as well as training and dispatching volunteers. She is focused on community engagement and development as it relates to adventurous performing arts. Outside this role, she is a researcher and artist working in puppetry and holds a MFA from the University of Connecticut (Mansfield, CT). ; Kayla Jackson: Jackson is an archivist and a graduate student in the University of Minnesota's heritage studies and public history programs. Her work focuses on processing and digitizing materials, managing online databases, and forging community partnerships and engagement. She has worked at the Strong Museum of Play, within the local history and genealogy division at the Rochester Public Library, and as an archivist at the Cary Graphic Arts Collection. She is also the founding archivist for Hallie Q. Brown Community Archives. She has a BS in museum studies and has served on a grant review panel with the National Endowment for the Humanities. ; Kristi Koziolek: Koziolek's youth was dedicated to dance, mostly tap. She attended the Perpich Center for Arts Education Arts High School, then took community college coursework in fine arts. She is the owner of Farm Girl Professional Garden Services and uses an artistic approach to create garden compositions. She's maintained a committed multimedia arts practice primarily in block printing, painting, needle felting landscapes, and dabbling in other art forms. She's served as a grant review panelist for the Central Minnesota Arts Board three times and received an Artist Learning grant last year. In 2018, she founded Underbrush, a now defunct 501(c)(3) based in Maple Plain, that served its community through art education. ; Kari Schloner: Schloner is the director of Northrop at the University of Minnesota. She joined the Northrop team as the general manager in April 2016 and moved into the director position in June 2018. She came to Northrop from Hennepin Arts, where she enjoyed programming and producing in the downtown theaters. Before working at Hennepin Arts, she was the entertainment representative at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel and the stage manager at Hancher Auditorium at the University of Iowa. Schloner also spent time as the tour manager for the State Ballet of Georgia's 2008 United States tour and was the stage manager for the Cedar Rapids Opera Theater for seven of its seasons. She earned her BFA in technical theater from North Dakota State University (Fargo, ND) and graduated in stage management at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA). ; Christa Velasquez: Velasquez is a recognized leader in philanthropic impact investing. Currently a consultant with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, she has also held leadership positions at Lumina Impact Ventures, Social Investments at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and Harvard Kennedy School. She has been a lecturer at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy since 2012. There, she teaches courses on the business of nonprofits and the evolving social sector, nonprofit management, and impact investing. She has a BA in Latin American studies from the University of Chicago and a MBA from the Yale School of Management.