Brian Sajko Named to ‘Cultural Towns’ National Advisory Council

purdue university & new harmony artists' guild project

Brian Sajko of Eureka has been named to the 15-member national advisory council for The League of Cultural Towns Initiative, a project of Purdue University’s Center for Community and Environmental Design and the New Harmony Artists’ Guild.

The initiative will identify “cultural towns” across the nation to form a league to meet annually to share successful programs, projects and development strategies for “maintaining community excellence.” Cultural towns are identified as having a population of less than 50,000, being rural and having an educational effort centered in the arts and with broad community engagement.

“These towns are genuine and authentic places that are deeply rooted in the arts and arts education and that identify, create and develop their unique qualities of community,” Sajko said. “They respect the past, live in the present and envision the future, looking forward and back simultaneously.”

Eureka is among five communities in Illinois and approximately 165 communities in the nation to be identified as cultural towns.

The advisory council is scheduled to meet in November during the Cultural Landscapes, Cultural Towns fourth international symposium in New Harmony, Ind., where Sajko was a visiting scholar in theater for the Indiana Division of State Museums and Historic Sites and associate artistic and managing director of the New Harmony Theatre for several years in the late 1980s. He currently is a theater professor; vice president for admissions, communications, and integrated marketing; and curator of the Ronald Reagan Museum at Eureka College.

###

Contact:

Michele Lehman

Media Relations Coordinator

mlehman@eureka.edu

(309) 467-6318