Arts in Education

AIE Alumni Gatherings: Continuing the Conversation Series

On November 29, 2007, more than 30 AIE alumni from the northeast gathered in the Eliot-Lyman Room, in Longfellow Hall, to re-connect and talk about current issues in the field of arts education.

Read AIE alumna Andrea Sachdeva’s report (505KB pdf) on that event—complete with excellent photographs and a transcript of AIE director Steve Seidel’s introductory remarks.

On April 24, 2008, another dozen or two graduates of the AIE program gathered, with current AIE students and members of the AIE Advisory Council, in the Gutman Library Reading Room, also known to AIE people as Gutman Gallery, for a reception preceding the Askwith Forum talk by AIE founding former director Jessica Hoffmann Davis on her new book, Why Our Schools Need the Arts.

On the evening of May 22, 2008, a number of AIE alumni gathered again in Eiot-Lyman Room — this time especially to explore the effects of AIE alumni work in the field.

In the Fall of 2008, Edward Clapp led an exploration in research and thinking about Leadership with 40 alumni sponsored by the AIE Continuing the Conversation Series.

Over the Halloween weekend in the Fall of 2009 — October 30–November 1 — some 150 arts educators convened on the HGSE campus for the first-ever national gathering of program alumni, current AIE students, and colleagues in the arts-in-education field. Read about the Arts in Education Conference. For more information, contact aiectcseries@gmail.com.

On March 13, 2010, several AIE grads, including Ian Hersey, Carissa Johnson, and Maggie Jacobstein, gathered at the Roundabout Theatre in New York, workplace of AIE'2007 graduate Aliza Greenberg, to discuss and demonstrate their recent activities in the field.

There have been similar gatherings in Los Angeles (thanks largely to the efforts of AIE'2006 graduates Talia Gibas and Rebecca Boyd Faubion) and in Chicago as well (thanks to AIE'2003 grad Natalie Bortoli).

Additional gatherings of AIE alumni are currently being planned by regional coordinators Joanne Seelig (AIE'2007) in Washington, D.C., Talya Dornbush (AIE'2007) in Denver, and Briget O'Brien (AIE'2008) and Laura Ellis (AIE'2009) in Texas.

Thanks to AIE'04 grad Joy Lamberton and AIE'07 grad Andrea Sachdeva for their continuing efforts to support and sustain these endeavors.

AIE Alumni Study

View the abridged version of the recent Arts in Education Program Alumni Study (214KB pdf), conducted in 2006 by Alison Rhodes and Steve Seidel, with the support of the AIE Advisory Council.

For information about the full report, please contact the AIE office via email to aie_web@gse.harvard.edu.

We would like to thank Val Sutton and the HGSE Career Services Office for the ongoing effort to fulfill many of the requests for alumni involvement and networking opportunities that are expressed in this report. Alumni may explore the CSO's offerings at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/careers/.