Janet Barrett
Music-Upper Middle/Secondary
Janet Barrett is an associate professor at the Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University, where her research interests include curriculum studies, interdisciplinary approaches in music education, and professional development in music teacher education. She is a co-author of several books, including Sound Ways of Knowing: Music in the Interdisciplinary Curriculum; Looking In On Music Teaching; and Constructing a Personal Orientation to Music Teaching, and is also the editor of Music Education at a Crossroads: Realizing the Goal of Music Education for All. She teaches courses in secondary music education, curriculum development, qualitative research methods, and interdisciplinary perspectives on music education.
Richard Bjella
Richard Bjella has been a full professor and director of choral studies at Texas Tech University since 2009. His highly acclaimed University Choir made its Carnegie Hall debut performance in May 2010 to rave reviews and was selected to perform for the 2012 Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio, Texas. Bjella has conducted choirs in Asia and Europe and has served as guest conductor for more than 350 festivals and workshops in twenty-eight states. Bjella will be conducting the High School Choir for the National Organization of American Kodaly Educators in Phoenix, Arizona, this year and presenting workshops and conducting in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas.
Katherine Burke
Theatre-Upper Middle/Secondary
Katherine Burke is a theatre practitioner and educator who currently serves as a medical humanities consultant for the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, where she designs and implements arts and humanities curricula for medical school students. She is the board secretary of Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc., an organization dedicated to the ideals and practices of Augusto Boal and Paulo Freire. Nationally and internationally, Burke has used applied and interactive theatre for the purposes of conflict resolution and social change and to address such issues as diversity, discrimination, and bullying. She is a professional director, actor, singer, and vocal and dialect coach, and is a faculty member at Kent State University.
Suzanne Burton
Music-Elementary/Lower Middle
Suzanne Burton is associate professor of music education, director of graduate studies, and coordinator of music education at the University of Delaware. She specializes in early childhood and K–12 general music. Her research interests are music acquisition, the development of music literacy, and effective professional development. Burton is on the editorial board of
Visions of Research in Music Education, is widely published in professional journals, and has contributed book chapters to
Applications of Music Learning Theory and
Collaborative Action for Change: Selected Proceedings of the 2007 Symposium on Music Teacher Education.
Dru Davison
Arts Evaluation
Dru Davison is the chair of arts education for Memphis City Schools and has a wide range of experience as both a performer and educator. Prior to his work in educational administration, Davison taught instrumental music and early childhood music in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Texas. Davison has presented professional development workshops for many state and national conferences. His workshop and research interests include teacher evaluation and student assessment, improvisation, project-based learning, curriculum development, and leadership training. Davison is an active adjudicator, clinician, freelance musician, and a member of the National Council of Supervisors of Music Education and the Tennessee Council of Visual and Performing Arts Supervisors.
Linda Arms Gilbert
School Administration
Linda Arms Gilbert is the director of Murfreesboro City Schools and a native of Rutherford County. Prior to her directorship, she was a tenured associate professor in the educational leadership department at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) from 2004 through 2010. While there, she received the MTSU Foundation’s Outstanding Teacher and Public Service Awards as well as the Tennessee Board of Regents’ State Public Service Award. Additional honors include being named Tennessee Teacher of the Year when she was a music teacher at Black Fox Elementary. As director of Murfreesboro City Schools, she has implemented professional learning communities, expanded community partnerships, and changed the district’s focus to meeting the needs of the whole child.
Mary Frances Hand
School Administration
As a doctoral student at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Mary Frances Hand wrote a dissertation about the effects of the arts on math and language arts achievement. That research and previous arts experiences led her to develop the curriculum and design for Thurman Francis Arts Academy in Smyrna, Tennessee, where she served as an administrator for nine years. After serving in Rutherford County Schools for twenty-two years as a teacher and administrator, she joined the faculty at Trevecca Nazarene University as an associate professor in the education program. Hand has served as post-baccalaureate coordinator, undergraduate field placement coordinator, and student teacher seminar professor at the university. One of the strategies she introduces to pre-service teachers in urban schools is the integration of the arts throughout the curriculum.
Jacqueline Kelly-McHale
Music-Elementary/Lower Middle
Chicago-based Jacqueline Kelly-McHale is an experienced music educator with Kodály, Orff, and Dalcroze training. Her background includes ten years of teaching elementary and middle school general music and choir in public and parochial schools. Kelly-McHale holds a doctorate in music education from Northwestern University and is currently an assistant professor and the coordinator of music education at DePaul University. Her areas of research include culturally responsive practice in elementary music classrooms, multicultural music education, and studies in the philosophy of music education.
Monica Leo
Theatre-Elementary/Lower Middle
Monica Leo is a first generation American, born to German refugees. When she was a child, her parents purchased a set of hand puppets from a German craftswoman, and Leo was hooked. She studied at the State Art Academy in Düsseldorf, Germany, with internationally renowned artist Josef Beuys. In 1974, Leo created the Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre in West Liberty, Iowa, where she is the lead puppeteer and managing director. Eulenspiegel has performed at numerous festivals, both internationally and in twenty-eight states. Leo makes dolls, creates block prints, and writes about the art of puppetry and touring in the rural Midwest.
Talleri McRae
Theatre-Elementary/Lower Middle
Talleri McRae is an education associate at Stage One Family Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky. During the last ten years she has collaborated with theatre artists and educators in Alaska, California, Illinois, Kentucky, and Texas and has worked for About Face Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, and Next Theatre in Chicago. During her graduate studies, Talleri researched perceptions of theatre and disability while working with young people, and offered professional development workshops to teachers and administrators in south Texas and rural Alaska. She is proud to wear many hats, including actor, storyteller, and teaching artist, and is excited to be part of Tennessee Arts Academy for the first time.
Bruce Miller
Theatre-Upper Middle/Secondary
Bruce Miller is a full professor and the director of acting programs at the University of Miami where he teaches acting and script analysis. He is the author of
The Scene Study Book,
Acting Solo, and
Actor’s Alchemy as well as
Head-first Acting and
The Actor as Storyteller. His articles regularly appear in
Dramatics Magazine and
Teaching Theatre. He is the 2002 recipient of the University of Miami Excellence in Teaching Award. Miller has conducted acting workshops nationally and internationally, including a series for the Educational Theatre Association’s professional development program and has received the association’s Founders Award for lifetime achievement in educational theatre.
Music-Elementary/Lower Middle
Kerri Lynn Nichols has been a student and teacher of music and dance for most of her life. A prolific and award-winning composer, author, and recording artist, she presents courses across the country and abroad in music, movement, and brain-based education. Her eclectic work includes in-services for school districts and associations and choreography for dance companies. Nichols is an accomplished vocal performer and currently directs the Olympia Peace Choir, which she founded. She is passionate about creating inclusive learning structures that meet the needs of all types of learners by using powerful yet simple principles. An imaginative, playful, and inspiring teacher, she nurtures students of all ages to connect with music from the inside-out.
Theatre-Upper Middle/Secondary
For the past twenty-seven years, Robert Post has performed in almost every conceivable setting, including dinner theatres, factories, festivals, homeless shelters, prisons, river boats, and schools; on street corners and TV commercials; and with symphony orchestras. Since 1973, he has created more than thirty works, for which he has received numerous awards and fellowships. Post has toured his one-man performance throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, the Mediterranean, Mexico, and Russia. He serves as an adjunct professor in the theatre department at Ohio State University, where he co-directed
Vaudeville, an evening of original works by MFA students. Post’s one-man show was presented by Broadway’s internationally acclaimed New Victory Theater to rave reviews and sold-out houses
Visual Art-Upper Middle/Secondary
Linda Peterson has worked as an art conservator, calligrapher, graphic designer, sculptor, teacher, and watercolorist. As an instructor, she enjoyed teaching at Indiana University at Columbus for twelve years. Her educational and art training includes classes at the Philadelphia College of Art, Arrowmont School of the Arts, and Bloomington Limestone Symposium, along with many workshops. She is a member of the American Institute of Conservation, Society of Guilders, and Plein Air Painters of Indiana and a signature member of the Watercolor Society of Indiana. Peterson has received numerous awards in painting and sculpture. She exhibits her work in Austria and across the United States. Peterson believes that art is the key to a better planet and a complete necessity.
Theatre-Elementary/Lower Middle
Pamela Sterling is an associate professor at Arizona State University in Phoenix where she teaches graduate courses in creative drama and improvisation with youth, theatre for social change, and play writing. A member of the Actor’s Equity Association, Pamela has performed professionally for several national repertory theatres, including three years as a founding company member of Seattle Children’s Theatre and two years with Stage One: The Louisville Children’s Theatre. She is a published playwright and has created an adaptation of the book
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. During the fall of 2012, she will be on sabbatical from ASU and developing an adaptation of the children’s novel
Blue Willow by Doris Gates.
School Administration
Esther Swink has served as dean of the School of Education at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville since 2003. Prior to her work at Trevecca, Swink served a teacher and administrator with the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, where she worked as a first grade teacher and as a library media specialist at all levels before moving into the position of Director of Library, Media, and Technology Services for the entire district. At Trevecca, she has implemented a master’s degree program in library and information Science and also teaches in the doctoral program. During her tenure as dean at Trevecca, the school of education has experienced significant growth in programming, enrollment, and partnerships.
Visual Art-Upper Middle/Secondary
Sheri Treadwell has spent her life exploring many mediums and enjoying a variety of outcomes. About the turn of the millennium, her attention was turned toward the malleable quality of clay and its sculptural potential. She has now enjoyed creating figures for more than ten years. In addition to other teachers and mentors, she has apprenticed with renowned wood-firing ceramicist Peter Rose. Her work has been exhibited at shows and galleries and is in many private collections across the country. She currently conducts classes, retreats, and workshops at her studio in Northern California.
Elizabeth Harris Willett
Visual Art-Elementary/Lower Middle
Elizabeth Harris Willett has enjoyed teaching art for more than twenty years. She has taught students from early childhood and elementary grades to the high school and college levels. She is currently teaching high school art in Fort Worth, Texas. Willett has served as the president of the Texas Art Education Association and the elementary division director for the National Art Education Association. She has also worked as a business development manager for Crayola, LLC, and is a co-author of the Crayola Dream-Maker Series. She was the education director for Imagination Celebration, a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding art experiences for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.
David Williams
Visual Art-Elementary/Lower Middle
David Williams received his bachelor of fine arts degree from Northern Arizona University in 1992 and his master of fine arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1996. Williams is presently a professor of printmaking at Northern Arizona University. His prints have been included in numerous international and national exhibitions where he has received several awards including the Legion of Paper Award, Boston Printmakers, and First Place at Waterworks in 2002. His work is also included in permanent public and private collections across the country.
Julie Williams
Visual Art-Elementary/Lower Middle
Julie Williams is a printmaker from Flagstaff, Arizona. She has a bachelor of fine arts degree from Northern Arizona University and specializes in color reduction woodcuts and handmade books and cards. She has been in numerous juried art shows and exhibitions. Williams has received several awards for her work including Top Five of Show, People of Print, and Best of Show at the Tempe Festival of the Arts. Her work is also included in permanent public and private collections across the country.