RSA LEADERSHIP AND FACULTY
DR. SANDY EISENBERG SASSO, RSA Director and Religious Studies Faculty
Dr. Sasso is an Indianapolis-based religious leader, writer and teacher. She founded the RSA seminar in 2013 to engage regional artists, students, and faculty in religion, theology, creative writing, art, music, dance and theater. In 1974, she was the first woman ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and has served as spiritual leader of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis since 1977 until her retirement in 2013. Dr. Sasso has been active in the arts, civic and interfaith communities of Indianapolis and beyond. She is also the author and editor of 20 children’s books and 2 books for adults.
DR. ANDREW FINDLEY, RSA Program Manager and Art History Faculty
Dr. Findley is an art and architectural historian with a teaching and research background in Classical Archaeology, public art, and arts administration. He is a research fellow for the IAHI, an adjunct faculty member in the Herron School of Art and Design, an Associate faculty member for the Department of World Languages and Cultures, and serves as the Program Manager and art history faculty of the RSA.
DR. DAVID CRAIG, Religious Studies Faculty
David Craig is a professor of Religious Studies in the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. His research focuses on healthcare ethics, environmental ethics, and economic justice. He is the author of two books: John Ruskin and the Ethics of Consumption (Virginia, 2006) and Health Care as a Social Good: Religious Values and American Democracy (Georgetown, 2014). As a community-engaged ethicist, Dr. Craig works with and for people in underserved communities seeking better support for health and access to health care. He is a recipient of three IU Trustees’ Teaching Awards, most recently in 2022, along with the 2015 IUPUI Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Civic Engagement and a 2020 Bantz Community Research Fellowship.
FRANKLIN OLIVER, Poet and History Instructor
Franklin Oliver is a poet from Indianapolis. His work tends to be personal and intimate yet not autobiographical. He’s written three books of poetry: MOSAIC, Myths, and Dreams and Premonitions.
DANIEL CUETO, Music Faculty
Born and raised in Lima to a Peruvian father and American mother, Daniel Cueto’s work is reflective of his broad cultural experiences within European, North American and South American music. His compositions have been described as “cleverly melding rich traditional Peruvian melodic and rhythmic elements with a contemporary flair, creating a personal style that is both pleasing and accessible to the listener and performer.” To date, his works have been performed in eighteen countries, including Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Malta, Argentina, Brazil and the USA.
SHARI WAGNER, Literature Faculty
Shari Wagner is the former Indiana Poet Laureate 2016-2017 and the author of three books of poems. Her poetry has also appeared in The Writers Almanac, American Life in Poetry, North American Review, Shenandoah, The Christian Century, Indiana Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Wabash Watershed, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She lives in Central Indiana and teaches poetry and memoir writing for the Indiana Writers Center.
KYLE RAGSDALE, Artist
Artist Kyle Ragsdale grew up in Texas and New Mexico, witnessing from a young age a mix of vibrant cultures and large wild spaces. Since earning degrees at Baylor University (BFA) and Southern Methodist University (MFA), Kyle has been painting full-time, working periodically as a decorative painter and stage set designer, and making fine art. He has served as curator for exhibits in Texas and Indiana and currently is curator for the Harrison Center, Indianapolis.
Kyle’s work has changed many times—the paint has been thick, thin, shiny, and flat. He often delves into decorative floral patterns, landscapes, and portraiture, but probably is best known for his mysterious elongated figures. Many times, people featured in his paintings are enjoying the beauty of community, sharing life at picnics or parties. Sometimes formal, sometimes casual, these signature figures and their often ambiguous settings always leave room for interpretation; like an open-ended novel, relationships and meanings are found in the viewer’s gaze.
Kyle works in a beautiful studio at the Harrison, beneath stained glass windows and amidst a crazy menagerie of paints, antiques, and eclectic music. He is part of a great, synergistic community of 36 working artists at the Harrison Center who share ideas, tools, and life. Kyle is currently in his 7th season of creating paintings for the Indiana Repertory Theatre and has created several murals in public spaces around Indianapolis. His work has been shown in galleries locally and nationally, and is frequently featured on HGTV’s Good Bones.