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A lot has been written about what democracies should look like. Far less has covered how to actually train citizens in democratic skills. Prof. Waisanen's project studies how improv-based teaching and training methods, which originated in improvisational theater but have since been adapted, applied, and evolved in many other contexts, can bridge differences and promote the communication, leadership, and civic skills our world urgently needs. With measured success, “applied improvisation” has been used to train scientists, medical and pharmacy staff, engineers, state officers, business students and faculty, service employees, managers, social workers, military personnel, and countless others. Drawing from a range of work, and applying lessons from experiences teaching applied improvisation around the world, Prof. Waisanen's research takes up the task of producing a complete analytic framework of higher purposes and practices for applied improv that can, as scholars have called for, pull societies upward. For the public good, this project demonstrates how scaling applied improvisation as a philosophy and set of concrete teachings and trainings can promote cosmopolitan citizens and help us improvise our way into better social worlds.  

Don Waisanen is an Associate Professor in the Baruch College, CUNY Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, where he received the Presidential Award for Distinguished Teaching. He teaches courses and workshops in communication, including executive speech training, media and campaign strategy, and seminars on leadership/management and improvisation. He has published over 35 scholarly articles on communication, covering topics from strategies in public speaking to the ways that organizations and governments can better communicate with citizens. Previously, Don was a Coro Fellow and worked in broadcast journalism, as a speechwriter, and on political campaigns. He is the founder and president of Communication Upward, an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University, and received a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School.