Would it be the newspaper? Radio or TV? E-mail, Twitter or Facebook?

If you had your druthers, what would be your favorite way to learn about arts and entertainment events in the Lewiston-Auburn region?

That’s what 乐播传媒 and a number of local organizations would like to know. And we’re hoping you’ll tell us.

Through a survey launched today on SurveyMonkey.com, 乐播传媒 and such organizations as L/A Arts hope to assess audience preferences for cultural events — the types of events you most enjoy, how you hear about them now and, most important, how you would like to hear about them.

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“The earthquake in mass communications is shaking up arts presenters, too,” says 乐播传媒 staff writer Doug Hubley, who publicizes cultural events for the college. “As we try to spread the word about happenings at 乐播传媒, or at the Public Theatre or L/A Arts, we can’t assume that the old methods are still effective.

“The question is, what methods will be effective? And we’re hoping our audiences will use this survey to tell us.” The 8-minute survey is titled聽“The Arts in L/A: Getting the Word Out.”

Currently, 乐播传媒 follows a fairly traditional path in publicizing events — press releases to the media, a printed monthly calendar mailed to subscribers and the same calendar online. The information gathered through the survey, the sponsors hope, will have a two-birds, one-stone effect, Hubley says.

“If it turns out our print pieces are going straight to the recycling bin, we may be able to save money on printing and mailing. And at the same time, we’ll learn how to give information to people the way they want to get it,” whether it’s through e-mail or even a Facebook site, he says.

Partnering with 乐播传媒 in the survey project are the , the , the , the , , , the and the .

– Doug Hubley, Office of Communications and Media Relations

The Downtown Education Collaborative (DEC), a local partnership of seven academic and community institutions, will open a new storefront education center at 219 Lisbon St. in January 2008. DEC鈥檚 mission is to pursue education partnerships in and with Lewiston鈥檚 downtown residential community. Its members include the four colleges of the Lewiston-Auburn area 鈥� Andover College, 乐播传媒 College, Central Maine Community College and the University of Southern Maine鈥檚 Lewiston-Auburn College 鈥� as well as the Lewiston Public Library, Lewiston Adult Education and Empower Lewiston.

For two years, the partners met together to plan an initiative that would bring their resources to the downtown community, work collaboratively with community partners and one another, create a downtown space that could help to build community capacity, and get the four “Colleges of the Androscoggin” working together.

“Can you imagine it?” said Karl Trautman, the representative of Central Maine Community College about the DEC coalition. “With the opening of our new center, we will have the opportunity to offer team-taught service-learning classes where students from all of our colleges can work together with community partners to meet community needs. I can envision clinics and internships, community research projects, open space for downtown community meetings and drop-in services. I think DEC enables all of us to work with the downtown community in ways that none could do separately.”

“We think that this model of inter-college cooperation mixed with community partnership represents something new in American higher education and something new for Lewiston-Auburn,” said Michelle Vazquez Jacobus of USM鈥檚 Lewiston-Auburn College. “All the DEC partners were doing innovative community work, but we hadn鈥檛 figured out how to do it together. We had a thousand dots, but we weren鈥檛 connecting them. Now we can envision all kinds of important projects: research into community health, computer projects that teach grass-roots groups how to use digital technologies, education programs for both new immigrants and older Mainers.”

The DEC partners are hiring a full-time administrator to direct the downtown education center and lead community-based education projects and programs. He or she will be responsible for working with the DEC collaborators and other community partners to organize education projects, oversee programs offered at the center and open the center to community events and initiatives. The launch and staffing of the center are made possible, in part, with a three-year, $132,000 grant from the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust to the 乐播传媒 College Harward Center for Community Partnerships for the support of the whole DEC coalition.

“DEC is committed to a vision of community education that is collaborative, empowering, and place-based. That is why we needed a space right in downtown Lewiston,” said Christine Lashua, the representative of Andover College in the collaborative. “The Cox Trust grant enables DEC to open and staff such a center.” The Cox Trust funding will be administered by the Harward Center, but the downtown center and its director will be responsible to the whole seven-member collaborative.

“We want the downtown center at 219 Lisbon St. to be at once a home and a crossroads, a place where educators and community partners can work together in new ways,鈥� said David Scobey, the director of 乐播传媒鈥� Harward Center for Community Partnerships. 鈥淲e think that everyone 鈥� the downtown community, our students, and our institutions 鈥� can benefit from DEC.”

The Harward Center for Community Partnerships joins several local agencies serving teens and young adults in launching Youth + Adults + Dialogue = Action, or YADA, an intergenerational project that will bring together more than 100 community members to discuss how to make Lewiston-Auburn a better place for youth.

A series of four dialogues for small groups will be co-facilitated by a young person and an adult. The goal of the two-hour dialogues is to develop action steps to be implemented collaboratively by young people and adults to make L-A聽 more youth-friendly, says YADA steering committee member Holly Lasagna, assistant director of service learning for the Harward Center. Including young people in the discussions is key to the effort.

The first YADA dialogue kicks off at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Lewiston Public Library, 200 Main St. The remaining dates are Nov. 1, 8 and 15. The Harward Center hosted a Sept. 29 facilitator training session at 乐播传媒 College, where 30 teenagers and adults worked on skills to use in upcoming dialogues.

“I was blown away by the response of those who attended,” Lasagna said. “Everyone was very engaged, and it was exciting to witness the adult-youth partnership that evolved. If their interaction is any indication of how the community dialogues will go, I believe this will be a very meaningful experience for all involved.”

In April 2006, several local agencies working with teens and young adults convened a group of community members to discuss ways to make Lewiston-Auburn a more youth-friendly and youth-empowered place. Although the group made some strides, they realized there were no young people sitting at the table. After careful consideration, much research and meaningful interaction with local youth, the consortium decided to initiate a “study circles project.”

Those interested in participating in the dialogues may contact YADA steering committee chairman Larry Marcoux of the United Way of Androscoggin County at 207-795-4000 or this lmarcoux@unitedwayandro.org.

In addition to 乐播传媒 College, members of the YADA steering committee include the United Way of Androscoggin County, the city of Lewiston, the Lewiston Public Library, TD Banknorth, New Beginnings, Lots to Gardens, THRIVE, local public schools, ACE/Youthbuild, YWCA, community businesses and young people.

Word about YADA is circulating nationally. Read about the project on , where community organizers and public officials connect online to share news, views and ideas, or on the site, featuring a report about YADA by the Lewiston Sun Journal.