Jessie Glover

I am Director of Operations for Strategic Affiliation Partnerships at Antioch University and the Coalition for the Common Good. In this work, I get to support efforts to expand higher education opportunities far and wide, alongside partners in K-12 education, the business sector, community colleges, the military, the nonprofit sector, and more.

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Alongside Francine Marchelle, I led a theatre class with adult participants of Goodwill Columbus over the summer. We collaboratively created a new play called Better to Be Together! 

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Along with Al Cleveland and the Voices of Injustice collective, I'm a dramaturg and acting coach for the development of a new play that shares the stories of exonerees in Ohio.

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This year, an essay I co-authored with Dr. Catherine Roma will be published in a volume called A Grassroots Leadership and Music for Social Change Primer (co-edited by Susan Erenrich and Debra DeRuyver). In the essay, we look at a project we led together in prison through the lens of leadership development. 

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I teach theatre and arts administration at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio. I'm directing The Laramie Project on the 2024-2025 season. My students are working on new plays, research, community-based art projects, internships, and more.

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I am a co-founder of Network Ohio for Arts and Healing, an emergent collaboration between seven Ohio organizations to support opportunities for healing arts experiences for young people in proximity to the justice system. In 2024 we are launching pilot arts programs for people young and old in community and correctional settings, and hosting a teaching artist gathering in October.

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In 2017, alongside a team of collaborators, I co-founded Ohio Prison Arts Connection to support art and creative resources for Ohioans impacted by the justice system. During COVID-19, we launched a conversation series on the arts and the justice system titled Radio OPAC, built creative care packages to give to people incarcerated and under quarantine, commissioned a poster series about the power of the arts, and more. We commissioned artwork from justice-impacted artists in 2021 and 2022 and are spending 2023 exhibiting work and convening conversations.

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In partnership with Healing Broken Circles, between 2015 and 2020 I directed Theater of Conviction at Marion Correctional Institution, where I worked with a company of 20 incarcerated men to learn about and make theatre. I also taught college credit-granting courses in acting and dramatic literature to students at the prison in partnership with Otterbein. During 2019, we produced And In This Corner, Cassius Clay by Idris Goodwin for performances in mid-July, and The Hamilton Project, our response to the groundbreaking musical, in November.  

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I was a co-founder of Wild Goose Creative, where between 2006 and 2017 I helped artists plan projects, events, and gallery shows. Wild Goose is run by an extraordinary group of community leaders and opened a brand new space during the COVID-19 pandemic.