Appendix B-3.
Rebecca Mushtare: Creating story-telling workshops and exhibits for people with Alzheimer
Sarah McConnell – University of Rochester (2021)
Background information
Rebecca Mushtare is an associate professor who specializes in Web Design and Interactive Media in the Department of Art and Design in the School of Communication, Media, and the Arts at SUNY Oswego, a public liberal arts college in upstate New York. Rebecca is also the Associate Dean for the Division of Graduate Studies, and she served as the associate director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at SUNY Oswego from 2015-2021.
Rebecca earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from SUNY Oswego and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University. She taught at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City for six years. She found her current spot at SUNY Oswego in 2012, where she appreciates opportunities to innovate beyond the classroom.
As an educator, Rebecca aims to spark curiosity in her students and colleagues, effect positive social change, and make learning accessible, inclusive, and relevant.
Key innovations and their value-added
Here are some of the most notable innovations Rebecca engaged in:
Tea for Teaching Podcast: Rebecca and co-host John Kane launched this podcast in 2017 to interview guests about innovative practices in education, with episodes released each Wednesday. This podcast disseminates ideas about effective practices in higher education to part-time faculty at SUNY Oswego and teaching faculty in the local and broader education community.
Faculty Accessibility Fellowship Program: Rebecca, in collaboration with colleagues in the workgroup on accessibility practices, developed this university-funded program in which a faculty member from each of SUNY Oswego’s four schools learn about improving accessibility in education. Rebecca facilitated this program three years ago and has since passed on program leadership to fellows. Participating faculty are equipped to improve accessibility in their own courses and serve as ambassadors to their respective schools. This program has also led to further development of the SUNY Oswego accessibility webpage, which provides information on a wide variety of asynchronous resources.
Vote Oswego: Rebecca collaborated with a political science faculty member, Allison Rank, to launch this voter registration and “get out the vote” campaign in which design students and political science students cooperate to develop a strategic communication plan involving social media and website design. This program promotes political engagement in the SUNY Oswego student body while helping participating students learn practical aspects of design application and demonstrating that their efforts can produce real, positive impacts in their community.
Recollection Project: This project promotes storytelling across generations (particularly with individuals with dementia) using objects as inspiration and starting points. Participants attend storytelling workshops, and the objects and related stories are compiled by design students into an exhibition that travels to senior centers in the region. Students gain experience with practical applications of design and—similar to the Vote Oswego project—see that their efforts can produce real, positive impacts in their community. The project also promotes sensory and narrative engagement in individuals with dementia and supports social connection across generations, especially with elderly populations who are often isolated.
In-depth story of an innovation: Recollection Project
How the idea came about and was evaluated/refined
This initiative was originally conceptualized in 2013 as a one-time project in which students in art courses would explore the experiences of individuals with dementia and their families, with the goal of introducing students to challenges that older adults face. An emeritus faculty member had been encouraging Tyler Art Gallery at SUNY Oswego “to do something on Alzheimer’s.” Eventually, the gallery director, Michael Flanagan, started bringing together people from different disciplines across the campus, professional artists with relevant experience, and people from the Alzheimer’s Disease Association to develop the initial framing of the project.
The project components consisted of storytelling workshops, a design course for undergraduates at SUNY Oswego, and an exhibit to share with the community. In some of the storytelling workshops, participants (typically older adults with dementia) brought familiar objects that reminded them of stories from their past and shared those accounts with the facilitators. In other workshops, groups of participants cooperatively created new stories inspired by objects presented by the workshop hosts. These stories were recorded for later sharing. Subsequently, in a fall semester course, students designed the exhibit to be shared with the community, including interactive displays with photographs of workshop participants, objects those participants chose to share, and the stories connected to these objects. The exhibit also included a walkway with strings suspended between the ceiling and floor with attached cards displaying photographs and quotes from participants.
The exhibit was displayed at Tyler Art Gallery at SUNY Oswego and the Syracuse Campus. There, it was seen by representatives from adult care facilities who requested that the exhibit be displayed at their locations. “Next thing you know,” Rebecca reflected, “this exhibit that was meant for students traveled to a number of adult care facilities.” At each location, the exhibit was received very positively by the residents, employees, and communities. After two years, the exhibit components became “dilapidated” from their repeated interactive use, and the exhibit could not be shared with the remaining facilities that had requested it. Rebecca was surprised by how well the idea of using objects to share stories as a means to establish inter-generational connection worked. In light of the positive impact on students, participants, and communities, Rebecca and her collaborators felt compelled to extend this initiative into a long-term project. “We tried something and were like, ‘Oh, that worked. Oh, man, now we’ve got to do it!’”
Rebecca recognized the value of the exhibit to the care facilities where it was displayed. Residents and staff appreciated how the exhibit brought novelty to their spaces with interactive elements that engaged residents who were otherwise often isolated and withdrawn. There was such demand among care centers for the exhibit that its components became too worn to be shared further.
Rebecca also noted the value of the storytelling workshops. Participants appreciated having their stories elevated and shared in exhibits where their pictures and accounts were displayed in museum-quality photographs.
As an educator, Rebecca was struck by the value of the design experience and community engagement for the students in the course. The project challenged the students to design for real, physical spaces, incorporating accessibility features particularly for older adults. These design students became engaged with a health issue they wouldn’t otherwise have considered.
“As an instructor, I was like, ‘I want more of this!’ Because my students were engaging with an important social and health issue they wouldn’t have otherwise studied, because I’m in art and design; it’s not part of our general curriculum. So this was important. But I also teach accessibility, and this was a great opportunity to teach that concept, but also in a physical space, and not just in virtual spaces, and to teach design for older adults. We’re all going to age eventually, and our population is aging at a much faster rate than it had been previously, so thinking about designing all sorts of things for older adults is really important for designers, and just something that hadn’t been really a strong part of our curriculum previously. So it kind of solves all of those problems.”
The students also came to recognize their civic responsibility, and they were able to see in concrete examples how their design work impacted the community.
“I also think it helps students recognize some of their civic duties and civic responsibilities. We often think about that in terms of voting, but it’s really about making sure that our community can thrive, and contributing to that, and seeing their role as designers helping that – or even just seeing that their design work impacts a community – is really important to the work that we do training future designers.”
All of these features align very closely with Rebecca’s personal interests and vision, as well as the mission of SUNY Oswego, which—as a public institution—is committed to education and accessibility.
Rebecca worked with two other faculty members to transition this initiative to a long-term project. Michael Flanagan had extensive experience with object-based learning in museums and art programs, and Seeley Cardone had relevant experience as an art therapist.
As they considered the long-term feasibility of the project, Rebecca and Michael focused on obtaining financial support. The first iteration had been supported largely by funding secured by the gallery at SUNY Oswego. They also knew of various grant opportunities for initiatives in the arts and was able to draw on existing partnerships with care facilities and aging-focused associations in the area. Confident in their ability to secure funds and equipment (though not all were secured yet), they decided to proceed with expanding this initiative into a long-term project.
Interestingly, Rebecca did not specifically discuss potential risks of this initiative. Rather, she focused on the project’s feasibility and the value of the initiative in fulfilling unmet needs of the community while providing authentic design experience and community engagement for her students.
Planning and gathering the needed resources
Rebecca did not start out with a formal written plan for this project, particularly since she expected that the project would be a one-time effort. She put in writing what was required to obtain funding, and her team has since produced more detailed project records, largely for purposes of long-term sustainability if project leadership gets passed to others; but they still have not written out a “big, cohesive plan.”
This project depends upon Rebecca teaching the corresponding design course to produce a new exhibit every other year, which relies upon Rebecca’s availability and student interest. Exhibit production also requires follow-up work, completed in the spring and summer by student designers and a student photographer.
For equipment, the team initially relied on what they could borrow from their department. As the specific needs of the project have become clearer, they have started purchasing equipment specifically for the project.
The exhibit was initially displayed in the gallery at SUNY Oswego, which is housed by the Department of Art and Design and has some grant funding to support local projects. The exhibit later traveled to nearby adult care centers at the request of those facilities.
As they sought to extend this project beyond its first iteration, Rebecca and her team explored options for funding. The gallery had basic funding to support the exhibit and its initial travel. The team was later able to take advantage of funding for visiting artists and special projects, and to obtain a grant from CNY Arts. She noted that the relevant funding opportunities tend to be very focused in specific domains, which require niche knowledge or persistent searching to find.
Rebecca and Michael also knew they would need collaborators with relevant expertise for this long-term effort. They soon invited art therapist Seeley Cardone, who was ready to join the project immediately.
Rebecca emphasized the importance of pre-existing partnerships with local adult care facilities, senior centers, and communities for project management and follow-up.
“I had a little bit of a relationship [with a local adult care center] already, and I was like, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about doing this project. Can we?’ And because I had the relationship, we were able to [move forward]. I think it was in part because I had those relationships that we were able to do that … I think that’s an important resource that is hidden, that wouldn’t have been obvious.”
Rebecca and her teammates also collaborated with a local expert on active aging, the Oswego County Office for the Aging, the Alzheimer’s Disease Association, CNY Arts, and representatives from adult care facilities to brainstorm approaches that would be meaningful and interesting for their target population, methods to ensure that they were inclusive of people with dementia, and ways to implement these ideas in the spaces provided.
Rebecca reflected that while many resources needed to be secured for the project to succeed, they weren’t necessarily all secured right from the start, and the team needed to make do with what they had.
“Things kind of [went] like, ‘this part’s in place, and then this part gets done, and then this part gets in place and this part gets done.’ If we waited for every piece to be in place, it would never have happened … Even the first [project iteration]: Did we really have funding? Not really. We just kind of did it. And we [were] totally low budget, hacking things together with basic supplies, and then went for some funding.”
Much of the project’s initial work relied upon Rebecca and her team members volunteering their time, before funding was secured and other collaborations were established.
“If it’s something new that we want to try, we just do it. We frankly volunteer a lot of our time because it’s something we care about, and that’s how the initial stuff gets done until we have more formalized relationships or funding streams.”
Implementing and monitoring the initiative
Rebecca, Michael, and Seeley have gradually been clarifying and refining their roles in the project. Rebecca serves as the creative director, responsible for the main design work with the students in her course. Michael focuses on figuring out how the exhibits will fit within the spaces at the gallery and adult care facilities. Seeley refines the objectives and methods used in the storytelling workshops. All three of them run the storytelling workshops together, accompanied by a student photographer to take pictures of participants and their objects. They have also recruited student employees to work during the summer, making final alterations for the displays designed the previous fall and taking photographs at workshops, all under Rebecca’s supervision.
As the exhibit has traveled to different facilities, Rebecca’s team has often had to improvise to overcome obstacles and find ways to improve the exhibit going forward.
“So, you know, these are places that are not meant to be galleries, right? So we basically hacked our exhibit into these spaces so that they can have these interactive exhibits in these hallways, essentially, and community rooms; and we quickly learned that designing for older adults is different from designing for students, clearly. [The first exhibit] wasn’t designed for older adults initially. Like The Pathway, for example: residents of the adult care facilities would often pull [the cards] closer to them so they could see, and then it would rip because it was made out of paper. So we quickly found a solution. We used stretchy string so it’s elastic now it can pull. We did all these adaptations and remediated the exhibit essentially so it would work for these residents and the staff, et cetera. And it was a hit.”
She also commented on the iterative process of trying the exhibit out, realizing when things went wrong, obtaining the relevant materials to address shortcomings, and repeating the process.
“These are some places where it would be helpful to have something that’s more sustainable. [For example,] it would be helpful to get things printed on vinyl so it can be washed and sanitized. There are some things that we learned over time. Now it’s like leveling up. Now we know we need funding for this because now we know we need these materials.”
Overall, Rebecca sees this project as a success, because each component has value, and because there haven’t been “any major disasters.”
The project promotes deep learning with authentic design experience for students enrolled in Rebecca’s class and for student interns. The students in the course compose written reflections that demonstrate the depth of their understanding, and the summer interns get real-world experience.
“Same thing with the student interns who are doing some of the design work over the summer: They’re working on a real project, really out in the world. They can see the fruits of their labor. It’s not just some imaginary project that they’re working on and putting in their portfolio – it’s real, it’s really tangible.”
Rebecca’s team has monitored the performance of their exhibits by observing how people interact with the display components, watching for where people seem confused, and noting where components break. They also talk with facility employees about the kinds of engagement they have noted at the exhibits, and ask about any complaints or suggestions. Fortunately, these employees consistently report that the exhibits have been worthwhile, they would opt to repeat them, and they would recommend the exhibits to others. The team then documents these observations for the next iteration of the project.
The team also evaluates the storytelling workshops using interviews and surveys to determine whether they are achieving their intended goals. Participants reliably respond that they would recommend these workshops to others. They also report that the storytelling techniques they have learned help them communicate with others in their families and communities, increasing the sense of connectedness across generations. Furthermore, employees at the adult care facilities where these workshops take place have shared that the workshops reduce isolation in the participants, which is especially important for individuals with dementia.
The team has modified portions of their project when they have not worked well. For example, they had hoped to make audio recordings of their interviews with workshop participants. However, they found that high-quality microphones intimidated their participants, and other recording devices like smart phones failed to capture variable speaking volumes, especially with background noise, as typically occurred in the recreation rooms of adult care facilities where they could meet. As a result, the team dropped the idea of collecting these recordings. More recently, though, new recording equipment has enabled the generation of transcripts in storytelling sessions.
Rebecca and her team members additionally monitor their own energy as they work on this project. So far, they have been very generous with their own time with this “labor of love.” However, given the challenges facing teaching faculty, they find this kind of selfless investment unsustainable in the long run.
“Part of it, I think, is just the nature of academia, a growing and increasing set of expectations for faculty members and staff members. Some of that has certainly drained us of some energy. … We’re all having to decide whether this is something that we want to commit to, long-term, or if it’s something that we need to step away from; and I think what’s challenging is that we’re having to have those discussions with ourselves. Is this something that we want to really continue or not? I think so, but it’s a matter of: does it meet some of the other goals, and is there enough overlap with other things that I’m doing that it seems reasonable, with the expectations that an institution has of me as an associate professor, as someone who’s hoping to go for full professor soon. These are all things that are important.”
In addition to considering whether they might need to scale back the project, the team members are currently trying to streamline the work involved in this project by identifying the most appropriate people for each component, training others to take on project responsibilities, and creating protocols that make their existing work more efficient.
Ensuring long-term sustainability and/or bigger impact
Rebecca’s team members have been reshaping their roles and considering how these contributions to the project will shift in the future. Seeley has taken on more of a leadership role, and Michael has focused more on communication with facilities. Michael is also planning to retire within the next couple of years. Rebecca intends to refine her involvement in the project, likely remaining involved in the design portion through her course, and contributing to project management, though she means to step away from the workshops since those are “not in my wheelhouse” and are “not the best use of my expertise on this project.”
The team hopes to bring three paid student interns on board as storytelling workshop facilitators. They are especially targeting students in art therapy since the workshops would provide attractive experience for them, and these students would likely already have more relevant knowledge and experience than the faculty currently running these workshops.
As they contemplate handing over portions of the project to other personnel, the team has been developing shared written documents detailing the project timeline, funding sources, and other logistics.
One significant challenge for long-term sustainability is maintaining funding. Rebecca commented that there are many funding opportunities to support novel approaches, but “things stop being new.” The team has been exploring ways to maintain an edge of novelty in the project, for example, by developing a do-it-yourself kit for the project, and creating train-the-trainer sessions for leading storytelling workshops. They have also been searching for more sustainable funding options. One promising option is private sponsorship, though this may only support the project in the local area. In case they are not able to share their exhibits more broadly, the team has considered methods to share the project idea with other universities in order to employ it in their regions. The do-it-yourself kit, train-the-trainer sessions, and the recently launched project website would support this goal.
Observations and lessons learned
Two pieces of advice: At the conclusion of the interview, Rebecca particularly emphasized two points of importance to her: (1) an innovator should not wait for everything to be in place before beginning a complicated project, because all the pieces will never be in place at once, and the innovator will end up waiting forever; and (2) everything takes time, both in terms of time to come to fruition, and time invested—often volunteered—by the innovator(s).
A non-linear process: I had trouble clearly establishing boundaries between phases for this report. In particular, there seemed to be two cycles of phases for this innovation: one for creating and implementing the first iteration (which was intended to be a one-time effort), and one for the long-term version. Although I decided to focus on the long-term version and group the entire first iteration into the “coming up with the idea” phase, I second-guessed this decision many times, especially while assigning entrepreneurial practices. Beyond the multi-cycle nature of this innovation, elements from one phase appeared to creep into other phases (e.g., resource gathering appeared in the evaluating and implementing phases; and monitoring appeared in the long-term sustainability section and vice versa). This blending seems consistent with Rebecca’s advice not to wait for all the pieces to be in place before moving on to the next step of a project. Opportunities and resources often become available in their own time, and the innovator must balance preparation with going with the flow to some extent.
Blurring boundaries: I was impressed by Rebecca’s knack for educational innovation beyond the traditional boundaries of a classroom. She seemed intrinsically driven to carry her vision into the community in order to effect positive social change, consistent with her overall vision. This was evident both in the initial iteration of the project and in how Rebecca felt compelled to pursue a long-term version of the projct to meet the needs and interests of the community (“Oh, that worked. Oh, man, now we’ve got to do it!”). In contrast, I tend to feel defined by the official borders of “my job” and “not my job;” but blurring boundaries like those could help spark ideas for value-adding initiatives.
Aligning effort with vision: I was also struck by the evidence of alignment between Rebecca’s vision and her efforts. She articulated her vision clearly and concisely at the start of the interview, as if she had given extensive, dedicated thought to defining it. She also explicitly noted how the Recollection Project embodied features that were important to her and supported SUNY Oswego’s mission. This underscores the importance of aligning one’s efforts with their own vision and their organization’s mission. The alignment with Rebecca’s vision motivated her to launch and maintain the initiative, and the alignment with SUNY Oswego’s mission increased the likelihood of organizational support. I don’t think that I have a particularly well-defined vision of my own at this point, but I can see the value of having a vision for clarifying what is or is not worth my time and energy.
Innovate and step away: Finally, I appreciated hearing Rebecca share tough truths about the selfless giving that is often required to get initiatives off the ground (especially in academia), having one’s energy drained by this kind of effort, and needing to consider stepping away or at least modifying one’s involvement in the initiative they had started. I am coming to recognize that an individual’s effort cannot be scaled up indefinitely, and it is a priority to avoid burnout, though this limitation hinders an initiative’s need to grow. Rebecca seems to recognize that she is an innovator and that others may be better suited to pick up the projects that she launches. I’m not yet sure how much innovation will factor into my career, whether I am likely to generate more ideas than I can sustain myself. I tend to feel protective of my own ideas, and I marvel when others appear comfortable with handing off their creations for others to oversee. Whatever the case, I hope I can make appropriate decisions about the best uses of my time and the best interests of any initiatives I launch.