CLARKSVILLE, Tenn (CLARKSVILLENOW) – Austin Peay’s Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts (CECA) recently received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to expand the University’s arts education partnership with the local school system.
The grant, part of the NEA’s Arts Engagement in American Communities program, will bolster a CECA and CMCSS partnership launched last year. The program works to provide sustainable and robust arts-based professional development for teachers.
CECA will use the grant to bring in four teaching artists to lead local educators through arts-based workshops. CECA held a similar workshop last October with Randy Barron, a John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts teaching artist and expert in arts integration teaching.
CECA paid to fly in Barron and for the substitute teachers needed to allow 25 regular teachers to attend the workshop. Barron also gave arts integration demonstrations at local schools.
Expanding Arts Education
CECA and CMCSS teamed up in early 2018 to win a Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts invitation to join the Partners in Education program, designed to help arts organizations expand education partnerships with their local school systems.
The partnership is further bolstered by a generous 10 year gift from the Heydel Family Foundation, in honor of June Heydel.
“It’s thrilling to have the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the continued support of the Heydel Family Foundation,” CECA Director Dr. Janice Crews said. “Their investment in our community shows me that CECA is on the right track and will allow us to reach more teachers and students than ever before.”
The Heydel gift also helps CECA pay for tickets and transportation for K-12 students to experience the arts. CECA paid for 5,469 students to see professional-level arts performances or exhibits in the 2018-19 school year, Crews said. The students attended the Nashville Opera, Roxy Regional Theater and Customs House Museum free of charge.