Posts Tagged ‘NEA’

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Resources, Links, Research

December 31, 2012

Interesting “Stuff”

A great way to end 2012 with some interesting resources including links to articles, research on arts education, podcasts and other types of resources. Enjoy!

Thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for some of the above language.

Posted in assessment, Communication, Community, Creativity, Curriculum and Instruction, Food for thought, Integration, Opportunity, VPA | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

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National Endowment for the Arts

October 19, 2012

Grant opportunity

Contact for media queries: Victoria Hutter, hutterv@arts.gov, 202-682-5692
Contact for application inquiries: Design Staff, OT@arts.gov

National Endowment for the Arts releases funding guidelines for Our Town
Grants ranging from $25,000 to $200,000 available to support creative placemaking projects

On October 11, 2012, the NEA will post guidelines and application materials for Our Town, the agency’s primary creative placemaking grants program. Pending availability of funding, grants will range from $25,000 to $200,000.

Our Town will invest in creative and innovative projects in which communities, together with their arts and design organizations and artists, seek to:

  • Improve their quality of life;
  • Encourage greater creative activity;
  • Foster stronger community identity and a sense of place; and
  • Revitalize economic development.

Other key information:

  • Complete Our Town application guidelines are available at arts.gov/grants/apply/OurTown/index.html
  • Application deadline is January 14, 2013 at 11:59 pm. This deadline is earlier than last year. For Our Town FAQs, go to arts.gov/grants/apply/OurTown/FAQ.html
  • Webinars to learn more about this funding opportunity will be held on November 6 and 13, 2012 at 3:00 pm EST at arts.gov
  • Program Inquiries: Email OT@arts.gov to schedule a call with an NEA design program specialist

Projects may include arts engagement, cultural planning, and design activities. Definitions of these activities can be found in the FY 2012 Our Town grant announcement. Project examples are below.

Now in its third year, Our Town has provided $11.57 million to fund 131 projects in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  Those projects are diverse in geographic distribution, number and types of partnerships, artistic discipline, and type of project. As regards population size, in FY 2012 alone, 41 of the 80 grants supported projects in communities with populations under 50,000.

To view a map of these projects along with descriptions and images, visit the Our Town section of the NEA website.

Art Engagement Project Examples

Union County Arts Center in Rahway, NJ Grant: $75,000
Union County Arts Center, the City of Rahway’s Redevelopment Agency, Arts Guild New Jersey, LuceGroup, Rahway Arts District, and artistic and community partners will collaborate on RAHWAY ARTsPART, a series of creative performances and community engagement activities.

RedLine in Denver, CO Grant: $25,000
The arts collective RedLine, City of Denver, and seven additional organizations will collaborate on A Village Environment, a project within the city’s Sustainability Park that involves the creation of public sculptures that will produce renewable energy. The public sculptures will be commissioned via a competitive selection process, with the requirement of artistic excellence and the ability to generate power.

Cultural Planning Project Examples

City of Omaha in Omaha, NE Grant: $100,000
The City of Omaha is partnering with Love’s Jazz and Art Center and local organizations on the Street of Dreams project, part of the revitalization plans for North Omaha’s 24th and Lake Street District. The grant will support a feasibility and community design study to re-imagine Festival Square and will allow the partners to engage visual artist and urban planner Theaster Gates to transform a nearby vacant building into a central space for artists and residents.

Santo Domingo Tribe in Santo Domingo Pueblo, NM Grant: $100,000
The Santo Domingo Planning Department and Housing Authority, Enterprise Community Partners, together with five local partners, will work together on a cultural district plan for Santo Domingo Pueblo. The plan will document the cultural heritage of the Santo Domingo Tribe, establishing livable and culturally appropriate guidelines for historic adobe structures and new development.

Design Activities Project Examples

Native Village of Mary’s Igloo in Teller, AK Grant: $50,000
The Native Village of Mary’s Igloo, a federally recognized tribe, is partnering with the not-for-profit Kawerak, Inc. and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center on community engagement and design activities for the Mary’s Igloo Community Development Center. The center will be designed through three design charrette meetings with the community and with local artists. The proposed facility will include a museum, cultural heritage room, library, commercial teaching kitchen, artisan workshop, small business operation spaces, lodging for tourists, gift shop, and storage.

Austin Film Society in Austin, TX Grant: $75,000
In 2000, the City of Austin collaborated with Austin Film Society to form Austin Studios on 20 acres at the newly decommissioned municipal airport. With the Our Town grant, the partners plan to incorporate a decommissioned National Guard Building into the Austin Studios campus. The remodeled building will include affordable space for film production and education, a new exhibition and visitors center, two screening rooms, and a plaza and lobby for public events.

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What a Week!

October 9, 2012

Some weeks are crazy

Last week was filled with adventures! I started the week in Washington D.C. at the Arts Education Advisory Group (AEAG) meeting. They are part of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASSA) which is made up of the state arts commissions including the Maine Arts Commission. Every year the AEAG plans a professional development institute (PDI) for the arts in education associates at the state arts commissions which includes Meagan Mattingly. I am the representative to AEAG for my national professional organization called State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE) which is comprised of the arts education specialists from the Departments of Education. I had a chance to be with AEAG at the opening of their PDI. It was wonderful to meet people who are committed to arts education in each state. Not to mention they are interesting, knowledgeable, creative, and FUN! The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) are affiliated with the AEAG and NASSA since funding is provided by the NEA. Consequently, there were a handful of staff from the NEA who are responsible for arts education who attended as well. In attendance was Ayanna N. Hudson, the NEA Director of Arts Education. She agreed to write a blog post for meartsed that will explain the programs/funding that is available for teachers, schools and communities. This will provide an overview to help you learn what is available. One of the evening highlights was the opportunity to see the performance of the DC Youth Slam Team. They were INCREDIBLE!

Next my travels took me to Reston, VA where SEADAE met with the chairs of the National Arts Standards writing teams and the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards leadership team. The writing teams are moving along with their work in spite of the little funding that has been provided. The most recent draft of the framework was shared by Co-Chairs, Marcia McCaffrey and NH DOE arts specialist and Lynn Tuttle, AZ arts specialist and president of SEADAE. The writing teams have taken the first draft with the components including Disciplines, Essential Questions, Enduring Understandings, Artistic Processes, Cornerstone Assessments, and re-arranged the direction of the document to make it  more user friendly. The work was shown to us on the website where the document will be housed so we could also see the work that has been done on the site. It will include a “quick view” button for finding stuff in a hurry, the use of tagging and keywords, and links to other works. All of this will be important aspects since it will be a web based document. You can view some of the ideas that are being considered at this link.

We had a discussion on what to call the final document so if you have any suggestions please email them and I can pass them along. The document will be arranged by grade level, PreK-8 but the high school format is still under discussion. You can read more about the format by clicking here.

At this point the expected date for the release of the “framework” will be in December. The first draft of the standards document which includes Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts will be within a few months after that, perhaps in March. Most likely the cornerstone assessments will be included when the standards draft comes out at grades 2, 5, and 8. The format will require feedback on the standards and the “userness” of the website.

Nancy Rubino from the College Board reported on recent research that looks at the Common Core State Standards for ELA and Math (CCSS) and the National Standards for the Arts. The research looks at the overlapping components of the CCSS and the arts frameworks and where the arts references are present in the CCSS. For example the research includes tells us that there are 26 ELA standards that have references to reading a work of drama. Looking closely at “college level learning” in the arts has been included in the research. The research will be released as soon as the final framework is determined and I am sure you will find it helpful. The College Board has done other research which I have mentioned in past blog posts and you can find links to this valuable information on the right side of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards wiki.

The end of the day included the live stream from the meeting to provide an overview of the event. If you weren’t available or couldn’t get on since the system was full I understand that it will be archived on the site in the near future.

I flew back to Maine early on Thursday morning and headed to Point Lookout in Northport where the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI) teacher leaders and leadership team met that night and all day Friday. We worked on the Depository for arts education resources in Maine located at MaineLearning.net and continued plans for the Mega-regional workshops to be held throughout the 2012-13 school year. On Friday the teacher leaders from phase 2 presented their workshops so they could gather feedback on their sessions to determine if they’d like to tweak anything before taking their session on the road for the regional workshops. The regional workshop sessions will be posted on the Department arts assessment page in the next two weeks so you can see what is available. The energy and expertise of their topics was inspirational and truly amazing. I was reminded of how fortunate we are in Maine to have such outstanding arts educators who are willing to share information and expand their horizons to become teacher leaders in the arts. I am sure when the Cornerstone Assessments are released from the national standards work that Maine will be ready to take on the task of reviewing them to provide feedback that will inform the nation.

Needless to say when the week ended on Friday evening I was exhausted! However, I am extremely proud of the work that arts educators are doing throughout the state and urge you to continue to read and stay abreast of the opportunities that are offered. If you have questions or comments on any of this please feel free to email me at argy.nestor@maine.gov or post a comment at the bottom of this post.

MAAI arts educators fall workshop

Posted in assessment, Communication, Creativity, Curriculum and Instruction, Dance, Food for thought, funding source, Leadership, Media Arts, Music, Opportunity, Research, Standards, Technology, Theater, Visual Arts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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