"All of the speakers were clearly experts in their field and had a wealth of information to share."
—Cherie Fryman, Media
City Ballet
- Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, November 11-14, 2009
- REGISTRATION
Speakers
As a conference delegate, you will gain skills and valuable insights into best practices and emerging trends from visionary leaders in the arts, as well as nationally renowned experts in the fields of assessment and evaluation, fundraising, governance, marketing, partnerships, technology, and more.
Keynoters
Bill
Ivey is Founding Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public
Policy at Vanderbilt University, an arts policy research center with offices
in Nashville, Tennessee and Washington, DC. He also directs the Center's Washington-based
program for senior government career staff, the Arts Industries Policy Forum,
and serves as Senior Consultant to Leadership Music, a professional development
program serving Nashville's music community. Ivey served as Team Leader for
Arts and Humanities in the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition. His book, Arts,
Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights, was published
by the University of California Press in the summer of 2008.
From May, 1998 through September, 2001, Ivey served as the seventh Chairman of
the National Endowment for the Arts. Following years of controversy and significant
reductions in NEA funding, Ivey's leadership is credited with restoring Congressional
confidence in the work of the NEA. Ivey's Challenge America Initiative, launched
in 1999, has to date garnered more than $15 million in new Congressional appropriations
for the Arts Endowment.
Prior to government service, Ivey was director of the Country Music Foundation
in Nashville, Tennessee. He was twice elected board chairman of the National
Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), and is immediate past President
of the American Folklore Society. Ivey holds degrees in History, Folklore,
and Ethnomusicology, as well as honorary doctorates from the University of
Michigan, Michigan Technological University, Wayne State University, and Indiana
University. He is a four-time Grammy Award nominee (Best Album Notes category),
and is the author of numerous articles on U.S. cultural policy, and on folk
and popular music.
Since
its founding in 1966, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) has worked to
foster the excellence, diversity, and vitality of the arts in Pennsylvania
and to broaden the availability and appreciation of those arts throughout the
state. The agency accomplishes this mission through a combination of grants,
partnerships and initiatives, technical assistance, and by serving as a resource
for arts-related information. As a grantmaker, convener and advocate for the
public value of the arts, the PCA demonstrates extraordinary leadership and
innovation. They advance community arts education through funding support for
arts organizations, arts programs and projects, including those of the Pennsylvania
members of the National Guild, and through its Pennsylvania Arts in Education
Partnership, which facilitates teacher-artist partnerships in schools through
a decentralized network of local and regional organizations. In 2004, the agency
was named among government’s top 50 “Best and Brightest” in
the Innovations in American Government Awards, a national competition of the
J.F.K. School of Government at Harvard University recognizing “the most
creative, forward thinking, results-driven” programs within the public
sector. The PCA is governed by a Council of 19 members—15 private citizens
appointed by the Governor and four members of the General Assembly—which
set the agency’s mission and goals, formulate policy, and make final
decisions on the use of funds. Governor Edward G. Rendell appointed Diane Dalto
of Philadelphia to serve as Council Chairman and Carol R. Brown of Pittsburgh,
as Vice Chairman. The agency has a professional staff of 16, headed by Executive
Director Philip Horn.
Ed Farmilant joined
the National Guild's Board of Trustees in 2004 and has been instrumental to the organization's recent growth. His vision, energy and generosity were key catalysts to the success of the National Guild's first ever Leadership Campaign which provided resources critical to the Guild's technological development and the growth of its information services. He also played a key role in initiating the National Guild's Community Arts Education Toolkit, which will be unveiled this fall. The Toolkit is a comprehensive online guide to developing a successful community arts education organization. It includes sections on program planning, evaluation, fundraising, marketing, and more.
In addition to his tenure as a National Guild trustee, Farmilant is also a 2002 graduate of the National Guild's AMICI (Arts Management in Community Institutions) Training Institute. His leadership and management training, coupled with a strong belief in the value of community arts education, led him to found The PRIME (Pride Radiates in Music Education) School of Music, which served nearly 300 students in Tuscon, Arizona. Farmilant is a lifetime Honorary Member of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Medici Circle, a group of 15 0 individuals who support students in various schools within the College of Fine Arts at UA. Farmilant will be stepping down from the National Guild's
Board of Trustees in November 2009.
Session Leaders
Conference sessions are led by expert practitioners, master trainers, and researchers in the field who tailor their presentations to meet the specific needs of community arts education administrators, practitioners and scholars. Some of this year's session leaders will include:
Giselle “Gigi” Antoni has served as president/CEO for Big Thought since 1995, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making imagination a part of everyday learning and uniting Dallas’ civic, educational, and cultural and arts resources to immerse children and families in opportunities to imagine, create and succeed. Her vision of systemic and equal educational opportunities for the Dallas Independent School District has helped to spark community partnerships that are changing the face of education in Dallas and beyond. Antoni has worked for more than twenty years in the arts education field as a performing artist, educator, community developer and arts administrator. She was a key driver in the implementation of Dallas ArtsPartners, a national model for public school arts integration developed with the Dallas ISD, the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs and more than 70 community cultural agencies. The outstanding success of Dallas ArtsPartners illuminated the possibilities for children in Dallas ISD, one of the largest and most socio-economically disadvantaged districts in the country. Antoni convened with grant makers, civic organizations, City of Dallas partners, corporate and individual donors to create Thriving Minds. Through this initiative children and families benefit from an extensive web of artistic and cultural providers to receive quality creative learning opportunities during school, outside of school time and in communities and neighborhoods. Antoni has lectured nationally about the success of organizing and convening communities, designing and building programs, and developing systemic arts integration initiatives. She has worked with the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in selecting Coming Up Taller Award winners; Arts Education Partnership; National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); Kennedy Center Imagination Celebration; and the National Working Group of the Arts for Learning organization.
Dianna Babcock is the director of early childhood music and an instructor at MacPhail Center for Music. She has worked in the early childhood music department since 1990. For 22 years, she has been an early childhood educator in the Twin Cities area. Dianna has degrees in music and psychology, with an emphasis in child psychology. In 1997, she completed her masters of education (MEd) in Early Childhood Education with a Pre-K licensure from the University of Minnesota. Dianna frequently conducts early childhood music workshops at conferences and early learning programs throughout the Midwest.
Paul Babcock is president and chief operating officer of MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, MN. Paul received his master’s in music degree in percussion performance from the University of Minnesota and B.A. in music and business administration from Monmouth College (Illinois). As a senior administrator at MacPhail, Paul has implemented and overseen many programs during the last 20 years, including the community partnerships program that has grown to serving over 3,800 students annually in 54 partnerships. He has led strategic planning initiatives for the organization and was the project manager for MacPhail’s new 55,000 square foot building in downtown Minneapolis, which opened in January 2008. Paul is also active as an instructor and performer. In January 1996, he formed the acclaimed percussion ensemble Rimshots! and has since recorded three CDs, performed over 300 concerts, toured France, Boston and Chicago, has won several awards and was featured on NPR’s program “From the Top.” He can be seen frequently throughout the Twin Cities as a freelance percussionist in both jazz and classical settings.
Becca Barniskis is a founding member of the Center for Artful Collaboration, a growing network of coaches and artists who provide innovative solutions to educators. She works as a poet, teaching artist and free-lance writer and coach in arts education. She also edits the Resource Exchange section of the Teaching Artist Journal, and develops content and architecture for Artful Online, a unique collection of arts education resources that support teaching, learning, and facilitating in K-20 classrooms.
Sharon Rodning Bash is program director for ArtsLab, an in-depth three year learning and technical assistance program offering a diverse set of activities designed to strengthen small arts organizations. Bash’s work focuses on organizational development, strategic planning, and change management. Prior to her work launching ArtsLab, she served as the director of organizational development grants and training services for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Bash also teaches in the St. Mary’s graduate program in arts administration in the areas of nonprofit management, and project and program planning and implementation.
Winner Bell is the executive director of Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls (RnRC4G) in Portland, OR. She moved to Portland in 2000 attending Portland State University on a golf scholarship, majoring in women’s studies with a minor in business marketing and German. She has played in bands such as K-sin, Northern Swords, Pom Pom Meltdown and Chubacabra, touring the U.S. with several projects. She is also an audio engineer and producer and has recorded many bands including her most recent co-production on Kill Rock Stars holiday album with vocalist Beth Ditto of the Gossip. Bell first volunteered at the RnRC4G in 2001 as a guitar instructor and continued teaching through 2006 at Summer Camp and in the after school program, Rock Block. In 2006 at 24, she was hired on as executive director as part of RnRC4Gs four person director staff. Bell co-created and facilitated an anti-oppression workshop called Image and Identity. Since she has trained other Girls Rock Camp staff and volunteers in facilitating and conducting the Image and Identity workshop at the Portland camp and other girls rock camp’s in North America and abroad. In addition to co-directing RnRC4G, Bell serves on the steering committee of the Girls Rock Camp Alliance (GRCA). The GRCA is a program of RnRC4G that provides networking opportunities and training for girls rock camps with missions in alliance with the RnRC4G, and has conducted several trainings on program development and capacity building.
Joyce Bonomini leads a dynamic staff at The Marcia P. Hoffman Performing Arts Institute at Ruth Eckerd Hall, a divisional school aligned with a Performing Arts Center, which now serves 130,000 people annually with 350,000 contact hours, The institute offers diverse, multi-disciplinary programs in instruction, live performance and community engagement. These programs provide service far beyond the walls of the Hoffman Institute into schools, community centers, hospitals, and other arts centers throughout Pinellas County, the State of Florida and the east coast of the United States of America. Through professional leadership, adherence to standards of excellence, responsiveness to their constituents and uncompromising dedication to principals of inclusion, The Hoffman Institute provides a dynamic resource to all segments of the community for life-long experience, exploration, discovery and mastery of the performing arts. Ms. Bonomini contributes to multiple committees of arts and education organizations serving Pinellas County, Florida. For more than a decade, she has also offered insight on arts education, arts infusion and building community through the arts, by way of training sessions and speaking engagements.
Bryan Bowser is the assistant director for external affairs at the Baldwin-Wallace College Conservatory of Music where he manages the community arts, summer music, and opera programs in addition to consulting on matters of Conservatory fundraising, marketing, student recruitment and alumni relations; he also serves as director of B-W’s arts management program. Bowser spent three seasons as director of operations and development with Lyric Opera Cleveland before returning to his alma mater Baldwin-Wallace as director of the conservatory’s outreach department; he was appointed assistant director of the conservatory in 2004. Bowser is also the minister of music at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Berea and has been seen in many local theaters, colleges and universities as a music director and conductor. Bowser is an advisory board member of Brecksville Theater on the Square and chair of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts’ Central Great Lakes chapter. He holds an M.B.A. in entrepreneurship and B.M.E. from Baldwin-Wallace College. He has been invited to present at numerous professional meetings including those of the Association of Arts Administration Educators, National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts and Ohio Music Teachers Association.
Jennifer Bransom has been the director of research and evaluation at Big Thought in Dallas, Texas since 2001. In this role, she has collaborated with individuals (parents, students, artists, teachers, and researchers) as well as institutions (school district leadership and city management) to collect information to improve the quality and relevance of arts programming designed for young people. Believing that the best evaluation builds everyone’s capacity to improve their work, Bransom trains community members to conduct research using thoughtfully developed tools that provide immediately applicable, as well as statistically analyzable information. Community learning has resulted in new and improved programming and instruction, better appreciation for the obstacles that can thwart family and student engagement, and published reports that include More Than Measuring (2007).
Linda Brasaemle is an early childhood music educator, teaching for Music Together in the Valley, in St. Paul, MN. She has been teaching Music Together since the year 2000 and has been awarded Music Together Certification Level II status, having demonstrated outstanding achievement in teaching, musicianship, program philosophy, and parent education. Linda conducts workshops internationally as a Songs and Skills Leader and Teacher Trainer for Music Together LLC. She has spoken at conferences around the country sharing her insight into early childhood music development and the use of developmentally appropriate curriculums for infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
Matthew Braun is the executive director of the Fleisher Art Memorial. Having entered the museum field by way of the fine arts, Braun studied sculpture at Washington University’s School of Art in St. Louis, and then went on as a Fulbright Scholar to pursue post-graduate studies at the Slade School of Art at the University of London. These early studio art experiences, including residency at the International Studio Program at the P.S.1/MOMA Contemporary Art Center in New York, propelled Braun into the world of exhibit design and on to Curator of Exhibitions for the National Park Service at St. Louis’s Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (a.k.a. the Gateway Arch). Upon relocating to Ithaca, New York in 1997, he began his tenure with The History Center as curator, and was selected to serve as its Executive Director in 2000. In 2005, Braun was honored by the American Association of Museums with the Nancy Hanks Memorial Award for Professional Excellence. He was subsequently selected to participate in the renowned Getty Leadership Institute, held annually at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Braun has served the field in many capacities, as a conference presenter and peer reviewer for the Institute for Museum and Library Services, American Association of Museums, National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, the American Association for State and Local History, and the Museum Association of New York. He currently is serving as a lead partner in the Arts for Children and Youth Initiative, a ten-year effort to reform arts-based learning in Philadelphia’s school system.
Beth Burns brings two decades of arts management experience to her role as executive director for Lutheran Music Program. During nine years at the Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis), she oversaw touring, education and statewide advocacy prograShe coordinated the successful grassroots effort that led to $25 million in capital investment support from the MN State Legislature for the new Guthrie facility. Her work in marketing, communications, and PR included staff positions with MacPhail Center for Music (1992 to 1996) and the Children's Theatre Company. Burns is a member of the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts board of directors and has served as a senior advisor to the National Endowment for the Arts. She has participated in review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, South Dakota Arts Council, Minnesota State Arts Board and Metro Regional Arts Council. Past board affiliations include the Developing Arts and Music Foundation, MN Alliance for Arts in Education, and 15 Head Theatre Lab. A 1991 graduate of St. Olaf College, Burns holds degrees in creative writing and speech/theater.
Steve Busa, co-founder and artistic director of Red Eye Collaboration, has been professionally writing and directing locally and nationally for more than 25 years. As a consultant and instructor he has collaborated with a wide range of organizations including the Institute for Cultural Affairs, National Endowment for the Arts, Arizona State University, Metropolitan State University, Minneapolis Public Schools’ Arts for Academic Achievement and Artful Teaching & Learning programs and the Perpich Center’s Arts and Schools as Partners (ASAP) and Art Courses for Educators (ACE) programs.
Randy Cohen is vice president of the Local Arts Advancement department at Americans for the Arts, the nation's advocacy organization for the arts. Cohen is charged with ensuring that every community and arts organization in America is served by a local arts agency—and that every community in America is an environment where the arts can thrive. Combining the strengths of research, advocacy, professional development, and member services, Cohen leads a team of 15 who strengthen the nation’s network of 4,000 local arts agencies. A member of the staff of Americans for the Arts since 1991, Cohen is among the most noted experts in the field of arts funding, research, policy, and using the arts to address community development issues. He published the two premiere economic studies of the arts industry—Arts & Economic Prosperity, the national impact study of nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences and Creative Industries, a statistical mapping study of the nation’s 650,000 arts businesses. Cohen led the development of the Americans for the Arts National Arts Policy Roundtable, a major initiative launched in 2006 in partnership with Robert Redford and the Sundance Preserve. In the late 1990s, Cohen collaborated with the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities to create Coming Up Taller, the White House report on arts programs for youth-at-risk, and the U.S. Department of Justice to produce the YouthARTS Project, the first national study to statistically document the impact of arts programs on at-risk youth. Cohen is a sought after speaker who has given speeches in 48 states, and regularly appears in the news media—including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and on CNN, CNBC, and NPR.
Minnesota State Senator Richard Cohen currently serves in the Minnesota State Senate as the chairman of the Finance Committee. He also serves on the Rules & Administration, Capitol Investment, Economic Development Budget Division, Higher Education Budget Division, and Judiciary Budget Division committees in the Senate. Cohen was first elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1976 and to the Minnesota Senate in 1992. Senator Cohen is known for his persistent advocacy for arts funding. Through the successful passage of the Legacy Amendment, he has assured a stable source of public support for the arts for the next twenty-five years. Prior to this, he provided for significant increases for the Minnesota State Arts Board, and was instrumental in establishing and increasing state funding for the Minnesota Film and Television Board. He has also championed support for the film incentive program in Minnesota and originated the St. Paul Cultural Star program to provide arts and cultural funding to strengthen the arts community in St. Paul. Through the Capitol Investment Committee and while chairing the State Government Finance Committee, he supported bonding bills to fund environmental, cultural and transportation needs, including substantial sums for Como Park, The Science Museum of Minnesota, and Metro Greenways and Natural Areas. The culmination of which was securing funding for the new Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. Senator Cohen also serves on the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre Board of Directors as well as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Board of Directors. In 1998 he was given the US Bank/Ordway Theater Sally Irvine Award for Commitment to the Arts.
Kenneth T. Cole was appointed Associate Director of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts in 2008. He had served as Program Director since joining the Guild in September 2004. Since that time, Cole has played a key role in the development of many Guild initiatives, including the MetLife Foundation Partners in Arts Education Excellence Grant Program and "Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit." Prior to joining the Guild, he served for three years as Director of Advancement at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC. From 1994–2001, Cole served as Executive Director of GALA Choruses, the arts service association of the lesbian and gay choral movement, where he established a series of new programs. Cole has also worked in the orchestral world, as Development Director for the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra from 2001 – 2004, and as a violist with orchestras in Louisiana, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. Cole holds a BM and an MM in viola performance from Oberlin College Conservatory and Louisiana State University respectively.
Barbara Cox is arts education partnership coordinator at the Perpich Center for Arts Education. Since 1998, she has worked statewide to develop collaborative partnerships and professional development opportunities with educators, administrators, artists, arts organizations, and students. Cox helped launch Artist to Artist, a national network of organizations and independent arts education consultants who work with schools, arts organizations, individual artists and educators to improve arts education for all students.
Carlo M. Cuesta founded Creation In Common eight years ago with partners Dana Gillespie and Padraic Lillis and today serves as the firm’s managing partner. He brings 20 years experience working for and consulting with nonprofit organizations. Cuesta has led research, strategic planning, marketing and fundraising engagements for health care, human service, environmental, arts and culture, foundations, and government agencies. He has worked on engagements with The McKnight Foundation, Saint Paul Foundation, ARRM, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Jerome Foundation, Care Providers of Minnesota, Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, Opportunity Partners, Sidney Health Center, Resources for Child Caring, Lyngblomsten, National Council on Family Relations, Pillsbury United Communities, Minnesota State Arts Board and Walker Art Center.
Sarah Cunningham has been director of arts education at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) since September 2005. In that capacity, she provides national leadership in the field of arts education and oversees several national initiatives including NEA Jazz in the Schools, NEA Summer Schools in the Arts, and NEA Education Leaders Institute, and chairs the peer panel process for the review of more than 700 applications each year. She also assists in the development of educational materials for the Arts Endowment’s The Big Read, a program designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. From March 2004 until her appointment with the NEA, Dr. Cunningham was the director of the education assessment and Charter Accreditation Program at the American Academy for Liberal Education in Washington, DC where she supervised a program to assess and accredit liberal arts-oriented charter schools. From March 1999 to February 2004, Dr. Cunningham was the first academic dean and dean of students at the Oxbow School, a visual arts high school in Napa, California. She helped found the school, designing curriculum that integrated the visual arts with academic courses, including a team-taught course with an instructor in digital art/photography that fully integrated English with web design, photography and digital art. She also managed the school’s professional development, admissions, student life, and curriculum decisions. Dr. Cunningham has held teaching positions at a variety of institutions including assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Maine (Orono), a Burke teaching fellow in aesthetics at Vanderbilt University (Nashville) and philosophy instructor at Belmont University (Nashville). Her publications include articles in National Charter School Clearinghouse Newsletter and book reviews in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts and the Newsletter of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. Dr. Cunningham received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Kenyon College and her masters and doctoral degrees in philosophy at Vanderbilt.
Tom DeCaigny currently serves as executive director of Performing Arts Workshop, a 45-year-old nonprofit arts education service organization in San Francisco, CA. He was appointed executive director in 2002 and first joined the Workshop in 1999 as the program manager for the Paul Robeson and Diego Rivera Academy, an alternative arts middle school and treatment program for repeat juvenile offenders. Under his leadership, the Workshop has grown from serving 3,500 youth per year to more than 8,000. He has overseen the inception of the Workshop’s Artists-in-Communities and Advocacy programs and administered two U.S. Department of Education Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination projects. He currently serves as board secretary of the California Alliance for Arts Education and is also secretary of the San Francisco Unified School District Arts Education Master Plan Steering Committee. His prior board service includes two years as board co-chair of LYRIC, a LGBTQQ youth community center in San Francisco and Chair for Making Art, Making Change, a 2006 conference dedicated to examining the relationship between art and social justice. Tom received his B.A. in dramatic arts from Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.
Amy F. Dennison is the director of the preparatory department for the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati (CCM). Ms. Dennison is also a consultant and writer for the Sound Discoveries Educational Program of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. She is the co-author of One Voice - Music and Stories in the Classroom (Libraries Unlimited, 1995). She received a bachelor of music education from Eastern Michigan University, a master’s of music from Michigan State University and a master’s in music education from CCM in 2006. She is a trustee for the Cincinnati Community Orchestra and the Cincinnati Children’s Choir.
David Dombrosky is the executive director of the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT), an applied research center at Carnegie Mellon University investigating ways in which technology can improve and enhance the practice of arts management and, when appropriate, developing technology solutions that meet critical needs in the field. Dumbrosky writes for the Technology in the Arts blog and has presented technology workshops and panels for a number of arts convenings—most recently for the Chorus America, Opera America, College Art Association, Alabama Dance Festival, and Grantmakers in the Arts. Additionally, he teaches seminars on conflict management and a course on cultural policy and advocacy for Carnegie Mellon’s Master of Arts Management program. Prior to joining the CAMT team, Dumbrosky spent eight years at the Southern Arts Federation, where he designed and managed both regional and national programs in the visual, performing, media and literary arts. Dumbrosky currently serves on the board of directors for the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture as well as the Art + Technology Advisory Committee for the Pittsburgh Technology Council. In 2007, David received the Emerging Leader Award from Americans for the Arts. He holds a M.A. in Communication Studies and B.A. degrees in Psychology and Speech Communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Linda Ehreth has been the arts education director for the North Dakota Council on the Arts since 2000. Her responsibilities include managing grant programs that promote arts education opportunities in North Dakota schools and communities; coordinating professional development and training experiences for educators, artists, and arts organizations; and developing and promoting resources that support the arts in North Dakota. Ehreth ’s 20 years of experience in the education field includes arts educator, museum educator, classroom instructor, school board member, adjunct professor and education consultant.
Catherine Scarbrough Fletcher is the director for the Herberger Institute Community School for Design and the Arts, a school which she helped Arizona State University build from the ground up in 2004.The school opened its doors to wide acclaim in 2005. She formerly served as director of community schools of the arts at Rhodes College and the University of Memphis, where she had much success in building arts programs for community members of all ages. She maintains an active role in the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, currently serving as chair of the Southwest chapter. She holds degrees in piano performance from Lambuth University and Middle Tennessee State University, and has performed regionally as a soloist and chamber musician. Giving back to the community has always been a strong focus of hers. While in Memphis, she began and participated in several community service projects. She gave free piano lessons to patients and their family members who lived at Target House and Ronald McDonald House during their treatment at St. Jude Research Hospital, as well as providing a pre-school music class for the children at Hope House, an area day care center for children affected by AIDS. Carrying on the tradition, the Herberger Institute Community School for Design and the Arts focuses on underserved children with Saturday classes in art, dance, music and theatre in the ASU ArtsLab.
Bill Flood is a consultant in the area of community cultural development – the intersection of community building and cultural development/management. His website details his philosophy and practice of working with public and private non-profit organizations (http://www.billflood.org). Bill served for nine years as the community development coordinator for the Oregon Arts Commission. There he developed and managed grants and technical assistance programs which assisted hundreds of Oregon communities, Indian Tribes, and schools better utilize and support local arts and cultural resources. He holds a master of science degree in community systems planning and development from the Pennsylvania State University and is a 2008 recipient of a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant which enabled him to teach for the Cultural Management Program at the Potsdam Fachhochschule, an applied sciences university in Potsdam, Germany. He is adjunct faculty with the University of Oregon Arts Administration Program where he teachers community cultural development.
Maria Genné, M.Ed. dancer, choreographer, educator and social artist, founded Kairos Dance in 1999. Genné has focused her career on inviting children, adults and elders to find their own unique way of dancing as they listen to their body intelligence and tap into their creative power. She is the founder and director of “The Dancing Heart: Vital Elders Moving in Community™,” an arts-based intergenerational revitalization program through which she and Kairos artists collaborate with organizations serving older adults. The Dancing Heart, the winner of two national awards, is designed to tap into the creativity of older adults and invite them to be collaborators in the artistic process. This evidence-based program is making significant improvements in the cognitive, physical, emotional and social health of individuals, and is starting to dramatically alter how society integrates and cares for elders. Genné is also a consultant/trainer for the National Center for Creative Aging and Kairos is listed in their recent publication: Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit, published with the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.
Meg Gehlen Nodzon, director of development at MacPhail Center for Music, has over ten years of fundraising experience and has been a member of MacPhail since 2005. Gehlen Nodzon earned a bachelor of arts in communication cum laude at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and a masters of arts in liberal studies from Hamline University. Prior to joining MacPhail in 2005, she held various fundraising positions, specializing in major gifts, at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and helped to found the St. Paul Arts and Culture Partnership. Gehlen Nodzon is a frequent lecturer at Augsburg College in their music business program.
Nicole Evans Haumesser has been an actress, director and educator in the professional theatre for the past 17 years.Receiving her BA in Theatre/ Education from Indiana University in 1992, she has taught theatre to youth and adults throughout the United States. Currently, she is lead teaching artist and program developer for The Hoffman Performing Arts Institute at Ruth Eckerd Hall. In addition to her years of training teaching artists and teaching classes in acting and improvisation, Haumesser has spent 7 years developing the arts infusion program, PASSport to the Arts, designed to enrich the content and curriculum of five local elementary schools. She has also conducted multiple workshops in concepts for a Creative Classroom to Pinellas County educators. She has directed two Next Stop Broadways’ productions on Ruth Eckerd’s stage and in recent years, brought her original musicals, The One & Only Owen, The Day of the Double Dog DARE and Owens ALMOST Overnight Adventure to the Murray Studio Theater.Nicole works with committees and organizations whose mission is to find unique and engaging ways to utilize the power of the arts in their community and is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Margaret Hasse is a consultant and independent contractor to arts organizations, government agencies, and foundations. As a multi-faceted arts worker, she has skills in strategic planning, organizational assessment, evaluation, and fundraising. A particular area of expertise is writing winning proposals and fostering effectiveness in organizations’ grant-seeking processes, such as search activity. She has helped arts groups secure grant funding from government agencies, local and national private foundations, corporate foundations, and family foundations. Hasse’s recent engagement in institutional grants development with the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts yielded $3.1 million that year from more than 50 grantors, including Wallace Foundation. Prior to establishing a consulting business in 1989, Hasse held the executive director and lobbyist position at Minnesota Alliance for Arts in Education, developing the organization into an effective advocacy group and the largest in the network of state Alliances affiliated with the Kennedy Center. Margaret has worked on both sides of the grantor-grantee relationship, reviewing proposals for funders such as Pew Charitable Trusts, Saint Paul Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Hasse’s academic background in English (B.A., Stanford University, M.A., University of Minnesota) has been useful in writing excellent grants and other materials for arts organizations. Author of three books of poetry, Hasse herself has received prizes, fellowships, and grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts.
David Hawley has been a SmartMusic Product Specialist for the past fifteen years. His diverse background includes over 20 years of multi-level studio, public school and college teaching as well as an extensive professional music performance career. He has a bachelor of science in music education and a master of fine arts in music performance from the University of Minnesota.
Jonathan Herman has been executive director of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts since 2004 and a staff member since 1995. At the Guild he has planned and managed national conferences, training and technical assistance programs, publications and special projects such as Creative Communities, a national initiative to foster the development of arts instruction programs in public housing communities. He was also the project leader for Partners in Excellence, a national initiative to identify and promote best practices in K-12 public school arts partnerships. Mr. Herman has also served as program director of the Rhinelander Center, an arts-based community center of the Children's Aid Society in New York City, and developed educational programs and materials at The New York Hall of Science. Mr. Herman holds an Ed.M. degree from Teachers College, Columbia University and a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York, Binghamton. He is a recent graduate of the Executive Level Program at the Columbia Business School’s Institute for Non-for-Profit Management and serves on the board of the National Music Council and the steering committee of the Arts Education Partnership.
Bettine Hermanson is a founding member of the Center for Artful Collaboration, a growing network of coaches and artists who provide innovative solutions to educators. She works as a coach and facilitator in arts education across the upper Midwest and develops content and architecture for Artful Online, a unique collection of arts education resources that support teaching, learning, and facilitating in K-20 classrooms.
Andrew Hisey teaches studio and group piano, serving as associate professor of music at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. From 1994-2005, he was a member of the faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and holds degrees in piano from Wilfrid Laurier University and from the University of Michigan, where he was the first to receive the doctor of music arts degree in piano pedagogy and performance. Dr. Hisey is a frequent lecturer and workshop clinician, and is an active performer. He served five summers at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern Michigan, directing the All State Piano Programs. Dr. Hisey has a special love for and has performed most of the piano and chamber music of Dmitri Shostakovich. He is one of the founding directors of the National Group Piano and Piano Pedagogy Forum, and serves as series editor for the Composer Editions publications from the Frederick Harris Music Company. Dr. Hisey is also editor of the new eight-volume Christopher Norton Connections™ for Piano series, and co-author of the accompanying Activities for students.
Cinda Holt is the director of the Building Arts Participation Program at the Montana Arts Council. She is also the president and founder of the Montana Five Rivers Festival of Film based in Missoula, Montana as well as an independent consultant. Prior to joining the arts council staff, Cinda served five years as the development director for MCT, Inc. (Missoula Children's Theatre/MCT Center for the Performing Arts), steering a $5M capital campaign which resulted in a state-of-the-art auditorium and administrative headquarters for the company. Prior to moving to Montana, Cinda was the managing director of Maurice Sendak's The Night Kitchen, a national touring children's theatre based in New York City. Before she began working with children's theatres, Cinda served nearly ten years (1982 to 1991) at the Sundance Institute for Film and Television as the managing director of the Sundance Film Festival and as the administrative director of the Institute's film, music and dance laboratories. While working for Sundance, Cinda was a panelist and site reviewer for the State of Florida Cultural Institutions Grants Program/Interdisciplinary Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting/Performing Arts Programming Awards Panel (1987 and 1988). Since Cinda moved (back) to Montana in 1994 she has provided consultation in all matters relating to non-profit businesses, primarily to dance organizations, film festivals, heritage projects and natural resource programs. She is a site evaluator for the National Endowment for the Arts Dance Program and has served as a panel member for the NEA's Dance program and Media program, as well as Montana's Cultural Trust Grants program. Cinda received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Arts Administration from the Theatre Department at the University of Utah (1981) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Modern Dance from The University of Montana (1976). She recently joined the board of the Montana Community Foundation.
Joseph L. Hull, III is the president and director of Barthelmes Foundation in Tulsa, OK. His accomplishments at Barthelmes include the initiation and development of Project CREATES, an education reform research project in which art is infused into the core curriculum. Project CREATES is a partnership with Tulsa Public Schools and the Education Psychology Department of Oklahoma State University. He currently serves as chairman of the board of directors of Barthelmes Conservatory in Tulsa. He previously served as director and vice president of The Albert & Hete Barthelmes Foundation in Tulsa.
Heather Ikemire is the National Guild’s marketing and communications manager and a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre for Youth at Arizona State University’s School of Theatre and Film. Her research focuses on the effects of community-based youth theater on youth agency and community cultural development. She has worked closely as a participant-observer with three community-based youth theatre ensembles in New York City: Find Your Light, a playwriting/performance program for youth associated with the NYC shelter system; viBeStages, an all-girl youth ensemble (part of viBe Theater Experience); and Ifetayo Youth Ensemble, a multi-age ensemble for youth of African descent living in Flatbush and its surrounding neighborhoods (part of Ifetayo Cultural Arts.). Each of these programs engages teenagers in a sustained process of creating original performance pieces based on stories relevant to their lives and/or the lives of their communities. Heather has more than 10 years’ experience in community arts education as a practitioner and a scholar, including three years as marketing and public relations manager at the Madison Repertory Theatre in Wisconsin. She has led programs as a teaching artist in school and community-based settings, and has received numerous accolades as an instructor at Arizona State University’s School of Theatre and Film. Ikemire founded the arts-based civic dialogue project, Phoenix Speaks; her research on community arts education has been published in The International Journal of the Arts in Society, Perspectives on Public Affairs, Community Arts Network, and other print and online journals. In 2006 she received the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s Winifred Ward Scholarship for excellence in the field. She has a B.A. in English from Vassar College.
Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D., is a senior research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center at the Urban Institute (UI) and director of UI’s Culture, Creativity and Communities Program. Her research focuses on urban policy, neighborhood revitalization and comprehensive community planning, the politics of race, ethnicity and gender in urban settings, and the role of arts and culture in communities. Projects that Dr. Jackson has directed or in which she has played a key role have focused on economic development, public safety, education, parks, housing, community cultural vitality and artists in communities as well as the development of quality of life indicators. Her work has typically integrated both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Dr. Jackson’s work has appeared in academic and professional journals as well as edited volumes in the fields of urban planning, sociology, community development and the arts. She has been a speaker at numerous national and international conferences focusing on quality of life, changing demographics, communities and cities of the future, and arts and society. Dr. Jackson also works as an independent consultant assisting organizations ranging from museums and cultural centers to community development and social service agencies with planning and program development. She has also taught and lectured in graduate and undergraduate level courses on urban planning, community development, ethnographic field research methods and arts administration. Dr. Jackson earned a Ph.D. in urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master of public administration degree from the University of Southern California.
Shaqe Kalaj is a painter, mixed-media artist, and the visual arts coordinator for VSA arts of Michigan. Kalaj shows her work regularly in galleries in Michigan, New York, Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, and Japan. Her work references issues such as eating disorders, child abuse, the farm industry, religion, mental illness, and racial stereotypes. “As an artist with a disability, I have used my mood disorder as the force behind my work,” Kalaj says. “Being bipolar means that you have within your experience many variations of emotions, and I have learned the terrain of my illness and use it through my art to explore deep and gripping issues.” In addition to creating her work, she is a creative coach and teaching artist, working with inner-city children with and without disabilities.
Anne Katz is executive director of Arts Wisconsin, Wisconsin’s non-profit statewide community arts action, service, and development organization, whose mission is to nurture, serve, promote and speak up for the arts in Wisconsin and all of its communities. Under her leadership, Arts Wisconsin received the 2004 Governor’s Award in Support of the Arts from the Wisconsin Foundation for the Arts. Anne works with Wisconsin’s rural arts sector on advocacy, strategic planning, resource development, arts education, marketing and promotion. She was a long-time member of the board of Wisconsin Rural Partners and served as president of the board in 2000-2001. Anne was an Arts Administration Fellow in the Locals Program of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988, and has worked with arts organizations in Madison and across the country, including the Madison Civic Center, Madison Committee for the Arts, Madison Repertory Theatre, O’Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, CT; and The Big Apple Circus, New Dramatists, Inc., and The Feld Ballet in NYC. She has been a peer review panelist for the City of Milwaukee Arts Board, Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Humanities Council, Iowa Arts Council, South Dakota Arts Council and the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. She is immediate past chair of the State Arts Action Council, the national network of statewide arts service and advocacy organizations affiliated with Americans for the Arts, the national service organization for the arts, and serves on the boards of the Wisconsin Public Radio Association, Wisconsin Nonprofits Association and Madison’s Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center. She was co-chair of the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Arts Education Task Force in 2007-2008, and is currently a member of the district’s strategic planning committee. She is a graduate of Brandeis University, with a B.A. degree in Theater Arts, and studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England. Anne was recently recognized as one of the 25 most powerful arts leaders in the country, according to “Barry’s Blog,” an influential and widely-read arts blog written by former California Arts Council director Barry Hessenius. She is a singer and performer in the Madison area, but these days, spends as much time as possible as a dedicated soccer/basketball/baseball mom to her son, Raphael.
Jonathan Katz, Ph.D., is the chief executive officer of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), and is one of the nation’s primary spokespersons on behalf of funding and support for the arts and cultural activities. Through NASAA, the state arts agencies (SAAs) share knowledge and strategic thinking, develop leadership and professionalism, maintain information systems, and advocate the value of the arts and culture. During the current fiscal year, SAAs will manage $400 million in state appropriations, federal grants and other revenues (see http://www.nasaa-arts.org). Dr. Katz has directed the graduate arts administration program at the University of Illinois at Springfield, The Children’s Museum of Denver, and the Kansas Arts Commission. A frequent speaker and workshop leader at forums on cultural issues and trends, he has consulted extensively on strategic planning, cultural policy development, advocacy, leadership development, and financial planning and earned income for nonprofits. He is a member of the U.S. Commission on UNESCO and co-founder of the Arts Education Partnership, established by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts as the nation’s forum for the advancement of arts education (see http://www.aep-arts.org). He has recently returned from Johannesburg, South Africa, where he led the CEO Seminar for heads of national arts and cultural agencies at the World Summit of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies (see http://www.ifacca.org).
Helen Q. Kivnick, Ph.D., trained as a clinical psychologist and has worked for nearly thirty years in practice, programming, research, and teaching concerning the promotion of healthy life-cycle development, the arts, and intercultural relations. She is currently a professor of social work at the University of Minnesota, and she lectures both nationally and internationally on these topics. Kivnick has spearheaded the development of Vital Involvement Practice (VIP)—a development-based, direct practice and programming modality (for individuals; for residential communities; for organizations) to optimize elders’ personal vitality and community engagement. She is a faculty member of the Minnesota Area Geriatric Education Center and an associate director of the University’s Center on Aging. She serves as a Master Teaching Artist for the National Center for Creative Aging. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Humanities and Arts in Aging and the founding director of CitySongs, an afterschool music program for urban youth.
Michael Kumer is the executive director of Duquesne University’s Nonprofit Leadership Institute (NLI), associate dean of the University's School of Leadership and Professional Advancement, and as program director for Duquesne’s Master of Science in community leadership degree program. Since assuming the directorship of the NLI, Kumer has produced and facilitated countless programs pursuant to nonprofit excellence. These programs have enjoyed a cumulative enrollment of thousands of board members, staff and volunteers representing several hundred nonprofit agencies. In addition to the knowledge he imparts on current trends in nonprofit leadership, Kumer enjoys sharing the wealth of personal experience he has accumulated as a board or advisory council member for several nonprofit organizations, including the Allegheny County Library Association, Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, Music for All, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Youth Education in the Arts. He is a past board chair of the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.
Mary Liniger joined VSA arts in October of 2007. As director of education services, she is responsible for creation and implementation of professional development and resources for educators, including the VSA arts Institute, the Start with the Arts early childhood learning resource, and the Teaching Artist Fellowship program. Before joining VSA arts, Liniger was the arts education coordinator and the ADA/504 coordinator for the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, a state arts agency. She also worked for the Kennedy Center’s education department and for The Source Teen Theatre, an afterschool theater program for underserved youth.
Jessica Malek, vice president of research and program development at Big Thought, leads the organization’s knowledge development and dissemination arm, which includes research and evaluation, knowledge sharing, and the development of new program initiatives. She has worked in the North Texas community for more than 15 years as a non-profit administrator, arts educator, program developer and artist. Malek received a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from Texas A&M University. In addition to her work at Big Thought, she also serves as a board member and executive producer for Project X, an interdisciplinary performing arts company located in Dallas’ design district.
Julia Wilkinson Manley is the school director at Ballet Nouveau Colorado. She began her training with Cristina Munro (London Festival Ballet, Eliot Feld) in Corpus Christi, Texas. She danced extensively with the Corpus Christi Ballet, performing soloist roles for six years. Julia attended the Boston Ballet Centre for Dance Education, where she studied with Tatiana Legat, Elena Solovieva and Laura Young. She trained with the Houston Ballet Academy and at the University of Oklahoma, where she received a B.F.A. in ballet pedagogy and danced soloist roles in Balanchine’s Serenade, Miguel Terekhov’s Four Moons, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, as Sugar Plum Fairy, as well as numerous solo roles choreographed for her by Mary Margaret Holt (Houston Ballet, San Francisco Ballet). She toured with Ballet Ireland under the direction of Gunther Falusy, and performed with David Taylor Dance Theatre and Ballet Nouveau Colorado. An award-winning choreographer, Julia premiered her first work at age 15. Her work has been performed by numerous companies, including Corpus Christi Ballet, David Taylor Dance Theatre, and Ballet Nouveau Colorado.
John M. McCann is a founder and Director of the Institute for Cultural Policy and Practice (the Institute) at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA and President of Partners in Performance, Inc. His specific expertise is in leadership education, visioning strategy development and conflict management for organizations.McCann designed the Community Arts Leadership Academy for ArtServe Michigan; served as lead faculty for the Orchestra Management Fellowship Program of the League of American Orchestras; and designed leadership seminars for Dance/USA, the National Guild of Community School of the Arts, the National Assembly of State Arts, and Theatre Communications Group. He was a co-founder of EmcArts, a consulting group that specializes in cultural and arts-based organizations, and has served on the faculty for the New York Alliance of Arts Organizations, the Empire Partnership for Arts Education, and others. On behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts, he also facilitated the focus groups that informed the creation of the Challenge America program.Recently McCann has been a member of the moderator team for both the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City and the Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference in New Orleans. Additional pro-bono work includes the Association of Arts Administration Educators and the Arts Council of New Orleans. Launched in 2009, Partners in Performance is proud to be working with Chamber Music America, Chicago Opera Theatre, the Levine School of Music, Dance Heritage Coalition, and the Cleveland Orchestra, and others.
Tom McCobb is senior architect and vice president of Raven Commerce Systems. Raven Commerce System’s produces Art Center Canvas, a management and registration system for community art education centers. From its inception, Art Center Canvas was an opportunity for McCobb, a software developer and painter, to combine vocation and avocation into a single effort. From his experiences as a student at various art education centers in the Philadelphia area, and experience as a board member of the historic Philadelphia Sketch Club (and now treasurer of the Plastic Club of Philadelphia), McCobb had the vantage of a consumer of art center offerings and a provider as well. In developing Art Center Canvas, McCobb drew on many years of experience as a value added reseller for various accounting products, including Great Plains Software, his expertise building highly formatted complex Crystal Reports, and his experience as lead developer of web-based applications for Global 100 law firms using Java Enterprise technologies. Raven Commerce Systems is dedicated to continuing to improve and expand Art Center Canvas and maintain its position as the peerless management and point of sale solution for community art centers.
Jeff Melanson was appointed executive director of Canada’s National Ballet School in November 2006. Jeff holds a bachelor of music from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, where he studied opera, Russian art song and choral conducting. Jeff has also pursued graduate vocal studies at the Oberlin Conservatory and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. He also holds an M.BA. in finance, marketing and strategy from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo. From 1998 to 2000, Jeff was the director of development for Opera Ontario. In March 2000, he was appointed assistant dean of the Community School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and at the end of 2001, he was promoted to dean. In his role as dean of RCM’s Community School, Jeff was instrumental in building the program into the largest community arts school in North America. He expanded the academic content of the program to include the critically acclaimed World Music Centre, DJ technique classes, rock/pop programming, jazz programming and teacher training. He launched a community program to bring music-making to the lives of children, youth and seniors from under-serviced areas. Jeff was also instrumental in building the RCM’s growth strategy into China. Jeff is a member of YPO, a trustee with the National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts (US) and has been an invited speaker on the role of the arts in community development at numerous United Nations and UNESCO events. Jeff is a frequent guest lecturer on arts management to arts students and M.B.A classes from universities across North America and around the world.
Kirsten Morgan, executive director of The Diller-Quaile School of Music, joined its faculty in 1981, served as the early childhood department head from 1995–2000, and was appointed to her current position in 1998. She holds a B.M. in flute from Manhattan School of Music, an M.S. in educational leadership from Bank Street College of Education, a New York State S.A.S. certification, and a Dalcroze certificate. She has also studied at the University of Michigan and the Dalcroze School in New York City. At Diller-Quaile, Ms. Morgan created, developed, and currently teaches college-level early childhood music courses for day care and Head Start personnel. These courses have been reviewed and recommended for undergraduate and graduate credit by the New York Regents National Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction. Also at Diller-Quaile, she initiated and developed a college-level Dalcroze musicianship and teacher training program that has been reviewed and recommended for graduate credit by NY Regents National Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction. She is a National Guild trustee.
Leah Goldstein Moses is president and CEO of the Improve Group. She founded the Improve Group to help organizations use high-quality, reliable and valid data in planning, managing, and evaluating programs. She has worked with federal, state and local agencies, and nonprofits ranging from community organizations to international NGOs. Leah is known for making evaluation meaningful, accessible and pragmatic for her clients. Her extensive work in the arts and in arts education includes everything from helping organizations to define success measures to implementing large-scale, quasi-experimental design studies. Some of her recent evaluation work includes: 1) An evaluation of South Carolina’s Arts in Basic Curriculum project, which took a 20-year retrospective view of the groundbreaking initiative; 2) an evaluation of the Performing Arts Workshop’s federally-funded Artist Residencies in Special Education (ARISE) program; and the development of success measures and related survey, observation and interview tools for Chicago Opera Theatre.
Lowell Noteboom has been a Guild trustee since November 1995 and currently sits on the Executive and Governance Committees. He is also on the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s board of directors, having served as board chair for more than six years (June 2001–October 2007). In addition, he joined the board of American Symphony Orchestra League in 2002 and, since June 2006, has been serving as chair of the board of the League. For the previous two years, he co-chaired the League’s strategic planning committee and served as chair of the League’s governance committee. Noteboom is a member of the Curtis Institute Board of Overseers and also serves as vice chair of Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. Prior community activities include long-time service on the board of trustees (including a term as board chair) of the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Noteboom regularly speaks, writes and leads seminars on the subject of nonprofit governance, as well as on nonprofit innovation and strategic planning. He is author of “Good Governance for Challenging Times,” Symphony Magazine, December 2003. For several years, he has served as a member of the faculty of the League’s Institutional Vision seminar. He is the immediate past president of Leonard, Street, and Deinard and founding chair of their Construction Law Practice Group, where he remains actively involved in his law practice. He received his JD, cum laude, from the University of Denver College of Law. An amateur cellist, he is a member of a string quartet which meets regularly for the pure fun of it and performs only when required to do so by their coach.
Jeremy Nowak, Ph.D., is the president and chief executive officer of The Reinvestment Fund and a nationally recognized leader in urban development. In addition to his work at TRF, Mr. Nowak is a board member of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank. He also chairs the Board of Mastery Charter Schools, a network of four inner city charter middle & high schools in Philadelphia; and Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a charity that has raised more $25 million for pediatric cancer research during the past four years. The author of numerous articles, his recent publications examine policy options for distressed cities; the historical role of religious institutions in community change; the role of development finance for older industrial cities; the challenges of environmental reclamation; and the role of art and culture in neighborhood regeneration. He is currently a fellow at the Aspen Institute, in a program for entrepreneurial leaders in education, and a member of a Harvard University (Kennedy School) Executive Session on transforming cities through civic entrepreneurship. He holds a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research and has also been awarded honorary doctorates from Villanova University and La Salle University. In 1995 he received Philadelphia’s highest civic honor, The Philadelphia Award.
David O'Fallon, Ph.D., is CEO of MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, MN, one of the largest community music education centers in the nation. Previously, David served as executive director of the Perpich Center for Arts Education, a unique state agency in Minnesota responsible for K-12 arts education, professional development and research; 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, where he helped initiate the Arts Education Partnership. He consults with educational and arts organizations across the U.S. from small rural nonprofits to large national and multi-national organizations. He served as faculty chair for the Empire State Partnership project in New York State for three years and is a frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences. He has recently worked with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Education Leadership Institute, Lincoln Center (on the national conversations on the imagination), and states from Alaska to Florida on arts and education strategies. Board services include the American Composer’s Forum, the Alliance of Young Artists & Writers Scholastic Art Awards for Scholastic, Inc., Learning Through Music, and others.
Peggy Quackenbush has been president and executive director of the Hochstein School of Music and Dance since 1992 and a member of the school’s faculty since 1979. Under her leadership, the school’s programs in music, dance and music therapy have expanded substantially, and the Hochstein Performance Hall, renovated in 1999, has become Rochester’s premiere mid-sized concert hall. An active soloist, chamber, and orchestral clarinetist, Dr. Quackenbush is a founding member of Antara Winds; she holds the doctor of musical arts degree from the Eastman School of Music, along with degrees from the University of Oregon’s School of Music and the University of Minnesota, Morris. She serves on the boards of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts and the National Association of Schools of Music.
Shelley Quiala is the director of education at Ordway Center, serving as the primary liaison between Ordway and the arts education community. Quiala designs and implements classroom-based residencies and workshops and professional development opportunities for educators and artists. She is the primary liaison to Ordway Center’s Education Advisory Committee and collaborates with the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists to design opportunities for students and staff. She is Ordway Center's representative in the Kennedy Center's Partners in Education partnership with Minneapolis and Saint Paul Public Schools and is also a member of the Arts for Academic Achievement Design Team and the Performing Arts Centers Education Directors network. She has been published in the Teaching Artist Journal’s Resource Roundup with a book review of Making the Case for Evaluation and has participated as a grant review panelist with the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Quiala is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Minnesota with a double major in Spanish and a self-designed study based in the disciplines of cultural studies, sociology, and the performing arts to look at performance as a medium of social change.
Margaret Perry has taught music in both private and public schools for more than thirty-five years in both Europe and the United States. For the past eighteen years, Ms. Perry has been the director of education for Austin Lyric Opera, and in 2000 she became the founding director of The Armstrong Community Music School, the first music school ever built by an opera company. Ms. Perry actively lectures on the lives of composers and opera history, and creates curriculum for early childhood music offerings. She currently serves on several local and national boards of directors. In 2003, the City of Austin honored her with a Community Service Award and the State of Texas declared a day in her honor for thirty years of arts advocacy and education.
Julie Rulyak became director of development and marketing at Turtle Bay Music School in June 2009, after having served as the School's development and marketing manager since 2005. Prior to working with Turtle Bay Music School, Julie acted as managing director of Cynthia Glacken Associates, a leader in not-for-profit communications strategy and design. Deeply committed to the growth of community music, Julie has also worked as an intern with Third Street Music School Settlement and the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts while developing curriculum for a community music education master's degree program at New York University. Julie holds a B.M., summa cum laude, and M.A. from New York University's Steinhardt School for Culture, Education and Human Development.
Pat Samples, MFA, MA, is a Master Teaching Artist with the National Center for Creative Aging. She is also a co-founder and coordinator for the Minnesota Creative Arts and Aging Network (MnCAAN), which is dedicated to expanding opportunities for artistic self-expression by older Minnesotans. Samples has given more than 500 keynotes and workshops internationally on creativity and aging topics, and she leads classes for seniors using multiple art forms. She is coordinating MnCAAN’s campaign on arts and aging, holding forums in communities across the state to stimulate the development of local artistic activities for seniors. Samples has a MA in human development and a MFA in creative writing. She is the author of eight books, including The Secret Wisdom of a Woman’s Body: Freeing Yourself To Live Passionately and Age Fearlessly.
Dr. Stephen Shapiro is the executive director of San Francisco’s Community Music Center, a nonprofit organization that has made musical study accessible to city residents since 1921. Since Shapiro took the helm in 1978, the school has expanded extensively with an additional branch, collaborative programs with 18 public schools, Latin and jazz curricula and development into a center for education and performance that reflects the rich diversity of San Francisco. In 2003, he received the Gerbode Fellowship for outstanding nonprofit leadership. Shapiro has worked as a consultant with five nascent Guild schools in the western United States through the Wallace Foundation funded, Guild-sponsored Adopt a School program. He is currently a member of the board of directors for the Zellerbach Family Foundation, served on the board of directors for the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts from 1981 to 1990 and was vice president of the Guild from 1983 to 1986. Shapiro has played piano professionally for many years and is also an amateur flautist. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a B.A. from Oberlin College.
Witt Siasoco is the program manager of Teen Programs at the Walker Art Center. Siasoco joined the Walker in 1998 to work with the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council (WACTAC), a visionary program designed to connect teenagers with contemporary art and artists. Today, Walker’s Teen Programs serve as an international model for alternative education formats both within museums and cultural centers. Formerly, Siasoco worked as a coordinator of the Young Artist Cabaret at Intermedia Arts, a monthly open mic for young artists and a Grantmakers in the Arts assistant for Arts Midwest, a regional arts organization. Siasoco served on the board of Juxtaposition Arts, a North Minneapolis arts organization that empowers youth and community to use the arts to actualize their full potential.
Julie F. Simpson joined Urban Gateways as its executive director in late 2006, after spending several years as the founding executive director of the Cricket Island Foundation (CIF) in New York City. Prior to running CIF, Julie worked in the not-for-profit sector for 25 years. She founded the Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP) at Columbia College Chicago in 1998 where she established the country’s first graduate program in arts in youth and community development. She spent her first 7 years at Columbia as the executive director of The Dance Center, where she co-founded and, until 2004, served as the executive producer of the DanceAfrica Chicago Festival. Julie also worked for over a decade in New York City as a choreographer, performer and arts management consultant, and served as a chairperson and faculty member at Queens College – CUNY, New York University, and Rockford College, Illinois. A native Chicagoan, Julie received her B.A. from Oberlin College and Masters Degrees (M.A. and M.F.A.) in educational policy and curriculum development, and choreography and performance from New York University.
Traci Slater-Rigaud is director of the Coming Up Taller Program with the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities through a cooperative agreement with NASAA. The Coming Up Taller Awards are the nation's highest honor for after-school and out-of-school programs that use the arts and humanities to enrich the lives of at-risk children. Slater-Rigaud is the former program coordinator for arts in education with the National PTA where she managed the Reflections Program. Prior to the National PTA, she was curator of education at Miami Art Museum. Her work there included developing and managing a broad range of educational programming for school, family and adult audiences. Slater-Rigaud's background also includes work as the public programs manager at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where she created and managed large-scale programs for the permanent collection and special exhibitions. She has several years of experience in community-based arts education and has a sincere passion for making the arts accessible to all communities. She holds a B.S. in social science and an M.A. in art education, both from the University of Cincinnati.
Sheila M. Smith has been Minnesota Citizens for the Art’s executive director since 1996. She was a leader in the 2008 “Vote Yes” campaign, passing a state constitutional amendment to create 25 years of dedicated funding for the arts and environment. She also has served as a public policy consultant for the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and is part of MCN’s Public Policy Cabinet. Before joining MCA, Smith served as staff at the Minnesota State Senate and lobbied local governments for Continental Airlines in Houston, TX. Smith serves as past chair of the State Arts Action League, part of Americans for the Arts. She received a Master’s degree in arts administration from St. Mary’s University and has a BA. in Shakespeare from St. Olaf College. She also teaches and lectures, both statewide and nationally, about the arts, grassroots advocacy, and other issues. Appointed by the Governor in 2002 to the Capitol Area Architectural Planning Board, she is former chair of the Friends of the Minnesota State Capitol. She is also a proud member of Minnesota’s 2008 Champion WorldQuest team, an international affairs trivia competition of the World Affairs Councils of America.
Sid Swartz is senior account manager for Active Educate, The Active Network. Sid has a successful history consulting to a wide range of nonprofit organizations, state and national public sector companies throughout the U.S. and Canada in registration and database management services. Over the last five years, he has been instrumental in bringing online a wide variety of music and performing arts schools. Previously as vice president of sales and marketing for AccessLine Technologies, Inc., he was responsible for licensing agreements to three out of seven of the regional Bell operating companies. Additionally as vice president of sales for N2H2 he was responsible for licensing state and large districts with internet proxy server filtering services to the K-12 market resulting in more than 50 percent of the students in the nation with desktop internet access utilizing N2H2 services. He lives in Newcastle, Washington with his two children.
Joe Sullivan is associate director for institutional gifts at MacPhail Center for Music and in that role he works with a wide variety of corporate, foundation and government sources that provide contributed revenue to MacPhail. Sullivan’s work involves the preparation of and follow-through for grant proposals as well as customized corporate sponsorship agreements. Prior to joining MacPhail in November 2007, Sullivan was the founder and executive director of the East Metro Music Academy (1998-2007), a community music school which served over 500 students each week with 25 faculty members, where he also taught individual and group guitar lessons. Sullivan has a bachelor’s of music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, with graduate work on his masters of business administration from the University of St. Thomas. In the Twin Cities’ community, Sullivan has served as treasurer with the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council’s board of directors (2004-2009), and he was the chair of the Western Great Lakes Region of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts (2006-2007). Sullivan has also been active in social justice, speaking nationally, and in the role of chair of the Catholic Charities USA Parish Social Ministry Committee from 1996-2000.
Bruce Thibodeau founded Arts Consulting Group, Inc. (ACG) in 1997 and has extensive experience in the arts and culture industry. The firm is now the leading provider of hands-on interim management, executive search, fundraising & marketing consulting, program and facilities planning, and organizational development services for the field. He has worked with dozens of clients in interim management, marketing and development consulting, executive search, strategic planning, and community engagement. He has been a speaker at various national conferences regarding Board effectiveness, governance, fundraising and strategic planning. Prior to founding ACG he held senior management and/or financial roles at the Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Museum of Contemporary Art – Los Angeles, and Price Waterhouse. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford and an MBA and Certificate in Advanced Management Studies from the F.W. Olin Graduate School at Babson College. He also has received the Certified Specialist in Planned Giving designation from the American Institute for Philanthropic Studies.
Terry Tofte is the executive director for the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists charter high school in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Tofte’s commitment to school choice is reflected in his career. He was instrumental in the development of the School of Environmental Studies (SES), in Apple Valley, Minnesota and led the Northfield, MN Board of Education through the sponsorship of two new charter schools in that community. He currently serves as board member for the Maltby Nature Center and Preserve in Randolph, MN, and is working with the Center on plans for a charter school focused on the natural sciences. He has served as the superintendent of schools in Northfield, MN, and as an assistant superintendent in Rosemount/Apple Valley/Eagan and Edina. He has thirty-three years of experience in K-12 education including 27 years of experience as a school administrator. Dr. Tofte holds a B.A. in philosophy from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, and a B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. in education from the University of Minnesota.
Jason Trotta is the executive director of the Northampton Community Music Center in Northampton, MA. He received his B.F.A. in Music from SUNY Purchase and previously served as the assistant director of the Rockland Conservatory of Music in Spring Valley, NY. In addition to his work in community arts education, Jason continues his work as a freelance composer.
Tom Trow is a community relations consultant to nonprofits, with extensive experience in forming partnerships among area organizations, public agencies and educational institutions. He served at the University of Minnesota for two decades as the Director of Community and Cultural Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts, representing the state's largest liberal arts college and its 500 faculty in community-based collaborations, working directly with nonprofits, educational institutions, state agencies and neighborhood groups. Tom has served on the Board of Directors of a dozen arts and cultural nonprofit organizations, including four that he helped to create, and has been a consultant or committee member to nearly two dozen other nonprofits in the Twin Cities. Working extensively with Twin Cities Public Television, he has been the executive in charge of over 70 broadcast documentaries created in partnerships with Minnesota nonprofits, six of which have earned regional Emmy nominations and an Emmy.
Beth A. Vogel works with various arts organizations on organizational development, program design and fundraising. She has served as the Director of the National Guild for Community Schools of the Arts’ Partners in Arts Education Institute since 2005. Vogel has garnered federal, state, corporate and foundation support for the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Trenton Education Dance Institute, Aljira, Inc., The National Guild and the HIV Education and Law Project in Miami Beach, and has written strategic plans for Reggie Wilson/Fist & Heel Performance Group and Freespace Dance Company. She is the contributing editor of the National Guild’s Partners in Excellence Handbook and an editor of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Artists & Communities: America Creates for the Millennium. From 1992-2003 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 prograDrawing 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. Her nationally acclaimed arts education program combined direct work in classrooms with assistance to education reform at the state and local levels. 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. Vogel is an alumna of Barnard College where she earned a B.A. with honors. She is a lecturer at New York University where she teaches Arts Management and Designing Arts Education PrograIn addition, Vogel is an independent editor of literary works.
Jeffry Walker was appointed executive director of the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, CA in 2007 building on a 30-year career in arts education and performance. Since 1990 he served as the director of the Austin Arts Center at Trinity College in Hartford, CT where in 2005 he received the Elizabeth L. Mahaffey Fellowship, the State of Connecticut’s highest achievement award for excellence in arts administration.Complementing his administrative responsibilities at Trinity, Jeffry also wrote and performed one-man plays, won a playwriting fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, and worked a clean-up stint in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Walker’s other professional experiences include teaching at Bucknell University (PA), West Virginia University and Drew University (NJ) as well as managing Mandell Theater at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He has also worked as a stage designer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. His abiding interest has been the medium of the arts in building a more culturally democratic society and more open relations and connections between people. Walker received an MFA from the School of Theater at Ohio University and a BA in Theater and Art from Slippery Rock State College (PA).
Donna Walker-Kuhne, acknowledged as the nation’s foremost expert in audience development by the Arts & Business Council, has devoted her professional career to increasing access to the arts and has generated over $13 million in box office sales. She was formerly director of marketing and audience development for The Public Theater and director of marketing for Dance Theatre of Harlem. Presently, she is president of Walker International Communications Group, a boutique marketing, press and audience development consulting agency. She provides consulting services to numerous arts organizations throughout the country and lectures regularly in Australia and Berlin. Her clients include Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Cherry Lane Theater, Theater for a New Audience, Montclair Art Museum, Caribbean Cultural Center, Dance USA, Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, The Apollo Theater, New York City Opera, The Ossie Davis Endowment Campaign, August Wilson’s Radio Golf, Three Mo’ Tenors and THURGOOD. She was an associate producer for George C. Wolfe’s Harlem Song at the Apollo Theater and co-producer for the 2004 AUDELCO Awards. She was recently selected as one of the 2008 25 Most Influential Black Women from The Network Journal. She is an adjunct professor at New York University, Columbia University and Brooklyn College. She is a board member of The Theater at Riverside Church, New Federal Theater, Brooklyn Arts Council and International Theater and Literacy Project. Her first book, Invitation to the Party: Building Bridges to Arts, Culture and Community, was published in 2005. www.walkercommunicationsgroup.com
Michael Walsh currently serves as the executive director of the Multnomah Arts Center, a program of Portland Parks & Recreation that provides a wide variety visual and performing arts classes to the greater Portland community. He previously served as the assistant director (1994–2001) and associate director (2001–2007) of the Community Music Center of Portland, Oregon. He has volunteered as a board and executive committee member both of Ethos Music Center, Inc. (2000–2006) and the Creative Music Guild, Inc. (1999–2005). He holds a certificate from the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts' Arts Management in Community Institutions program, and is a graduate of the Residential College at the University of Michigan.
J. Curtis Warner Jr. occupies the post of associate vice president for education outreach and executive director for Berklee City Music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. In his current capacity as the associate vice president, he is responsible for the broad oversight of the College's outreach programming and is considered the architect of the Berklee City Music program. Prior to arriving at Berklee in 1993, Curtis enjoyed a 17 year tenure in urban public school music education as both a teacher and administrator. He is also an active percussionist.
Kirstin Wiegmann joined Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 2007 as the festival and education programs coordinator. She coordinates planning and implementation of an annual Children's Festival, engaging more than 50,000 people annually, and manages the Festival's visual art programs, including a statewide poster contest and exhibition of student artwork. Ms. Wiegmann also advises on and supervises departmental internship and volunteer initiatives. She instructs the field experience coursework at the Saint Paul Conservatory for the Performing Arts and sits on the Saint Paul Festival Association Board. Ms. Wiegmann is currently pursuing a master’s degree in arts and cultural management at Saint Mary’s University and holds a bachelor’s degree in design with a focus on ceramic and sculptural art. Prior to working at Ordway Center, Ms. Wiegmann taught visual arts in Lawrence, Kansas and painted murals with young adults and children.
Dennie Palmer Wolf trained as a researcher at Harvard Project Zero, where she led studies on the early development of artistic and symbolic capacities. She directed Project PACE (Projects in Active Cultural Engagement) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an organization that focused on children and youth as vital, but often ignored, forces in cultural planning. More recently, she has pioneered evaluation studies that build the capacities of organizations, funders, and the communities they serve, co-authoring More Than Measuring, a longitudinal study of the effects of arts-based learning, sponsored by Big Thought, a 50-organization consortium in Dallas. Wolf has published widely on issues of assessment, evaluation, artistic, and imaginative development. At the heart of her work is a commitment to increasing children and youth’s access to learning featuring inquiry, innovation, and imagination both in and out of school.
Greg Wright became North House Folk School’s first full-time executive director in 2001, four years after North House was envisioned by community volunteers. He brought with him decades of experience in his craft: educational and nonprofit leadership. North House's mission is "to enrich lives and build community through the teaching of traditional northern crafts." In twelve short years, North House school has emerged as a nationally recognized destination for northern folk art education. On campus Greg has participated in courses ranging from timber framing to beer brewing, kick sled building to wood-canvas canoe restoration. Chasing horizons in the North has been a preoccupation of Greg’s for many years, both on a professional and personal level. An avid wilderness traveler by water, ski and foot, his journeys have ranged across much of northern North America, exploring the traditional waterways of the Canadian Shield in wood-canvas canoes and encountering elemental landscapes and echoes of arctic cultures while paddling arctic rivers in the Barren Lands. His leadership experiences range from community nonprofits to wilderness youth programs to the high school classroom.
Dr. Laura Zakaras is an arts researcher and communications analyst at RAND. She was the lead author of the report, Cultivating Demand for the Arts: Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State Arts Policy, which was number two on RAND’s bestseller list for 2008. She has also conducted research on a range of other topics, including strategies for building arts participation, the state of the performing arts, and the benefits of the arts. Zakaras also serves as the director of RAND’s Research Communications Group. Before coming to RAND, she taught literature and writing at several universities in the U.S. and Europe. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington.
Peteris Zarins is chief examiner of practical subjects, training and development for the National Music Certificate Program/RCM Examinations and is a faculty member of the acclaimed Glenn Gould School and Community School of The Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, Canada. He holds both ARCT Performer’s and ARCT Teacher’s Diplomas from The Royal Conservatory of Music and received his master’s degree in performance and pedagogy from the University of Michigan.