"The Conference is packed with good sessions. It just gets better every year!"
- Janice Gockel Seattle, WA
2006 Partners in Excellence: Arts Education Partnership Institute
Sponsored by 
2007 Pre-Conference Institutes TBA (Below is a description of a 2006 program)
True partnerships, characterized by mutual understanding and commitment, collaborative planning, and joint curriculum and professional development, have powerful, long-term effects on students, faculty, institutions and communities. The Partners in Excellence Institute will provide you with the tools and training needed to develop successful arts education partnerships with public schools.
You’ll learn:
- The characteristics of effective, sustainable partnerships
- How to collaboratively plan and monitor a successful partnership
- How to navigate cultural differences between community arts organizations and public schools
- How to ensure effective communication between you and your partner
- Collaborative curriculum planning techniques which honor the needs, goals and expertise of all parties
- Team building and professional development techniques that support teaching artists and classroom teachers
- How to evaluate the partnership and assess student progress
The Institute is appropriate for executive directors, program directors, and development directors of community arts education organizations and their public school partners.
As a participant, you’ll also receive a complimentary copy of the National Guild’s Partners in Excellence: A Guide to Community School of the Arts/Public School Partnerships from Inspiration to Implementation.
Institute Faculty
Paul Babcock is Vice President and Director of the School at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, MN, one of the largest community music education centers in the nation. During his 16 years with MacPhail, Mr. Babcock has served in many roles including Interim Director, Director of Community Partnerships and Dean. Currently, he oversees all programming aspects of MacPhail including five core program areas and over 150 faculty members. Mr. Babcock also teaches percussion and leads the renowned high school percussion ensemble Rimshots! He has served on the boards or in a volunteer capacity for the following organizations: Whittier Community School for the Arts; Interdistrict Downtown School; Charter Schools for the Arts; Partners: Arts, Schools and Students; J-Train of the Dakota Foundation for Jazz Education: and Percussive Arts Society–Minnesota Chapter. He has presented at the Music Educators National Convention and the Minnesota Music Educators Association.
Alison Marshall, Arts Learning Director, Arizona Commission on the Arts, is a teaching artist, performer/choreographer, consultant and arts administrator. She serves as adjunct (dance) faculty at Lesley University, College of Creative Arts and for Harvard University, Project Zero Institute, and Graduate School of Education. Alison holds a doctorate in Integrated Arts Education with a specialization in dance. Her performance and choreography work has been presented at a variety of venues including the New Works Series San Francisco, Naropa/Colorado Summer Dance Festival, Jo-Ha-Ku Dance, Boston and Phoenix Theatre . Alison designs and presents professional development programs in dance and theatre for teachers and teaching artists nationally and is the co-author of a design arts curriculum and teachers guide titled Architecture and Children. She has served as an editor for the Teaching Artist Journal and as co-director of Detour Theater Company, an educational and performance theater company for developmentally delayed adults. Her previous work has been as an artist in residence and as a classroom, special education and arts teacher for grades 1 through 9. She has served as adjunct and associate faculty in dance and education at Arizona State University West, the University of Washington, and Prescott College.
Magda Martinez is Program Director, Community Partnerships in the Arts for the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia, PA. Ms. Martinez joined the Fleisher community in March 2002 as Coordinator for the Arts Team of the Southeast Philadelphia Collaborative, a coalition of organizations created to bring together youth and artists to support creative expression and youth development. This entailed managing teaching artists, budgets and programming as well as building curricula with artists and site directors. As Program Director of Community Partnerships, Ms. Martinez designs programs and manages many in-school artist residencies created in collaboration with classroom teachers and artists. As an art educator; she has worked with populations diverse in culture, age and economic status; constructed curricula around diverse themes using a variety of mediums; taught students from elementary through high school; and facilitated workshops for groups ranging from senior citizens, to university students to incarcerated women. Previously, Ms. Martinez was a social studies teacher and Dean of Studies at the Community Academy Charter School in North Philadelphia. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University in Latin American Studies, with a concentration in Literature and History.
David O’Fallon, PhD, is President of MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, MN. Previously, David served as Executive Director of the Perpich Center for Arts Education, a unique state agency in Minnesota housing the State Arts High School, a professional development institute and a research program on a 30-acre campus. Perpich Center makes the arts a fundamental part of an excellent education for all of Minnesota’s pre-K through 12th grade students. In partnership with Minneapolis Public Schools, the Perpich Center is one of three sites in the nation to receive Annenberg Challenge funds for education reform through the arts. Called Arts for Academic Achievement, the $10 million project is designed to increase student achievement through the arts. Prior to his tenure at the Perpich Center, David served as the Education Director for the National Endowment for the Arts, and as a senior staff member at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He helped initiate the Arts Education Partnership. He has consulted with educational and arts organizations across the U.S. from small rural nonprofits to large national and multi-national organizations. He consulted with the Leonard Bernstein family on the Bernstein Institute for Education through the Arts in Nashville, Tennessee. He served as Faculty Chair for the Empire State Partnership project in New York State for three years. Dr. O’Fallon has been a frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences in London, Dublin, Glasgow, New York, Los Angeles and St. Petersburg, Russia. Board services include the American Composer’s Forum, the nation’s first national service organization in support of the American composer, and the national board of the Alliance of Young Artists & Writers, Scholastic Art Awards for Scholastic, Inc.
Antoine O’Karma has been a teacher in the School District of Philadelphia for 14 years. In addition to teaching first grade she is the grade group leader for Pre-K through Grade Three and a workshop facilitator for the Philadelphia Education Fund. Mrs. O’Karma was a 2005 recipient of the Rose Lindenbaum Excellence in Education Award. Her education includes a B.A. in Psychology from Rosemont College and an M.S. in Education from St. Joseph’s University. She is a certified Reading Specialist. Mrs. O’Karma has been working in a collaborative partnership with a teaching artist from Fleisher Art Memorial for the past six years.
Lynn Tuttle joined the Arizona Department of Education as Arts Education Specialist in October, 2003. Her duties include managing a $6 million three-year arts education initiative for the Superintendent of Public Instruction; acting as a liaison to the state’s arts educators; providing professional development in arts education; revising the Arizona Academic Arts Standards; and advocating for quality arts education program in Arizona’s public schools. Lynn is a member of the State Consortium on Assessment and Student Standards, a national organization focused on state-level arts education assessment. Lynn serves as Treasurer for the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE), a national service organization, and is a board member for 4 other non-profits: the AZ Alliance for Arts Education, the AZ Music Educators Association, the Phoenix Boys Choir, and Faith Lutheran Preschool. She has presented at the National Art Education Association Conference and the Music Educators National Conference. During her 11 years in Arizona, Lynn has also served as staff for the Arizona Community Foundation, Arizona Commission on the Arts, The Phoenix Symphony and the Phoenix Boys Choir. Lynn holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, the Johns Hopkins University and the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
Beth A. Vogel, Director of the National Guild’s Arts Education Partnership Institute, consults with arts organizations on organizational development, program design and fundraising. From 1992-2003, Ms. Vogel served as the Program Officer for Arts Education and Artist Services at the New Jersey State Council on the Arts where she also managed the dance and literature programs. Drawing on her background in American cultural history and modern dance, her work at the Council focused on the development of significant partnerships that expanded the reach of services. She developed the first statewide infrastructure to support independent artists which provided career advancement training, information services and grant opportunities. Her nationally acclaimed arts education program combined direct work in classrooms with assistance to education reform at the state and local levels. From 1993 to 1996 she served on the Standards and Frameworks writing teams for the NJ State Department of Education.
Ms. Vogel has served on many regional, state and local advisory boards, including the Arts Education Steering Committee for the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Poet Laureate Selection Committee. She has spoken at many conferences and universities, including Rutgers University and Pratt Institute and conferences of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, US Department of Education and the Arts Education Partnership. She is a lecturer at New York University where she teaches Arts Management and Designing Arts Education Programs. She is an editor of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Artists & Communities: America Creates for the Millenium.