by Samantha McClain, Editor-In-Chief

Spring Arts and Culture Festival was a week-long event as part of the Arts and Culture +. Throughout March 6-10, NorthWest Arkansas Community College hosted a multi-day festival that brought artists, academics, and other Northwest Arkansas and NWACC community members to reflect on an annual theme. The SACF theme this year was “embodiment.” According to dictionary.com, embodiment means embodying the state or fact of being embodied, a person, being, or thing embodying the spirit, principle, abstraction, etc.

SACF began in 2006 as a Reading Series, Tim McGinn, organizer of the early SAF, said. McGinn and several others created the SAF to have a reading series of guest writers coming to NWACC from the University of Arkansas or other schools to read their writing, McGinn said. 

“I ran it for seven years, and it grew from a day to a few days to more of a week of events as time passed,” McGinn said. 

Megan Looney-Hollingsworth, the co-chair of Arts and Culture+, has been the coordinator for SACF since the fall of 2018, and this is her last school year as co-chair for SACF. It is time for a new perspective and new direction, Looney said.

Brody Parrish Craig will step into Looney’s position. It has been discussed by the interim dean of communications and arts, Sharon Fox, and Jennifer Swartout, associate vice president for general education, Looney said.

Looney said that the program is expanding from just a week of SACF to hosting Arts and Culture + throughout the year. Last year, there were over 50 events revolving around the theme of Interdependence, according to the 2022 SACF schedule. There were virtual art exhibitions, collaborations with the Bentonville Public Library, and cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum and NorthWest Arkansas Holocaust Awareness Project. This year, only about 30 different kinds of events were available for one week.

For future events, a planning committee is made up of any faculty and staff of NWACC to plan for the theme of the SACF. Next year, students can be involved with the planning, Looney said. Looney said that students, faculty, staff, or others outside of NWACC could be a part of planning for the SACF and can join by letting the co-chairs know. In the Fall, events can be proposed even if the people are off the committee, Looney said.

To keep the consistency of the SACF, Shawna Thorup will continue as co-chair, and another person will take second place as co-chair.

Before Covid-19 affected NWACC, the 2020 SACF happened the week before everything shut down. In 2021, the SACF went virtual and did events on either Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Events have been free and open to the public. Hispanic/Latinx Heritage takes place from Oct. 15 – Nov. 15, International Education Week takes place on Nov. 14 – 18, and Black History takes place on Feb. 15.

Throughout the years of the SACF, different organizers have changed since 2006. After Tim McGinn stepped down in 2012, Lindsey Hutton, a faculty member at NWACC, stepped up and organized SACF until 2018. Then Matt Evans, a political science professor, worked with Looney for a time before he stepped down, and Rachel Ackerman, an English faculty member, filled the co-chair position. Then Throup joined as co-chair alongside Looney, Looney said. Ackerman still teaches yoga today for SACF.