Arts in Education

Alumni & Careers

The Class of 2003 AIE Grapevine
By Scott Ruescher, Program Coordinator

"I heard it through the grapevine." -Marvin Gaye

 At the informal gatherings of AIE alumni from 2003 who stayed in Boston after graduation, news tends to circulate of the many more who chose to leave town for career opportunities or missed loved ones they left behind to spend a year in Cambridge. At one such meeting in the spring of 2004, at a cafe in Harvard Square, Carin Rosenberg, newly appointed education director of the Underground Railway Theatre — a 25 year-old nonprofit that was raising money to pay for its imminent move to Central Square — reported that Nikki Bridges had just landed a job as director of operations at Teach for America in New York City. Anne Armstrong, who returned after graduation to her art teaching job at Belmont Day School, said that Steven J. Ross fellow Gabriela Hernandez was teaching art, too, at Beaver Country Day in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Katie Lawrence talked about her demanding and rewarding education internship at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln — a job held the year before by Tiffanie Ting, AIE'02, who now was working at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston, and before Tiffanie by Juline Chevalier, AIE'01, then manager of outreach education at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science in Greenwich, Connecticut — all of them under the supervision, as the networking gods would have it, of Susan Diachisin, AIE’97, a member of the first AIE class. And Jim Daischendt,  (who sometimes answers to the name Gary), everyone knew, was making a splash as director of education programs for the von Liebig Art Center in Naples, Florida. Two continuing part-time AIE students—Betsy Damian (a kindergarten teacher at the public elementary Tobin School in Cambridge and contributor to Project Zero research) and Rob Matthews (a former ballet dancer and AIDS hospice worker who was finding new interest in literacy programs) — were in attendance at the café and had alumni career news to share. Apparently, Natalie Addison had a great job at an architecture firm in Washington, D.C. Laura Shicko was teaching Spanish at a private high school in Marin County, California. John Harris, a new father, was painting feverishly as always and designing sets for drama productions. And Mina Hartong had returned to the theater-education nonprofit in Brooklyn, where she worked before coming to HGSE, only now as the director of education programs.

Two years later, things have changed for nearly everyone present at that gathering in Harvard Square, and for everyone they mentioned.

Carin has moved to Oregon and is said to be teaching at the Opal School in Portland. Nikki’s living in Brooklyn and teaching fourth grade at the Bronx Charter School for the Arts. Anne’s still happily ensconced at the Belmont Day School — but Gabriela has moved to New Orleans, where, for three years now, she has been working as adult programs manager for the Louisiana State Museum. Katie’s in New York now, teaching at the Chapin School, and she’s going by the last name of Sawatzky. Tiffanie long since has moved to Ontario to run the education department of the Kitchener- Waterloo Gallery west of Toronto for a couple of years, only to return to Cambridge in 2007 to begin working on an Ed.D. at HGSE and to work as a teaching fellow in Steve Seidel’s core AIE courses. Juline’s still working in museum education, but now at the Nash Museum at Duke University, while Susan continues to serve as manager of interpretive programs at the DeCordova Museum. But Jim has entered a doctoral program at Teachers College, and now manages the education program at the Dahesh Museum of Art on Madison Avenue while teaching studio art at Queens College. Betsy, Rob, and Natalie, remain in their respective roles in Cambridge, Cambridge, and Washington, D.C., while Laura has moved back to Boston with her husband and given birth to her first child. John has moved with his family, painting easel, and teaching experience to Texas. And Mina? We have reason to believe that she’s doing stand-up comedy in New York and serving as education director for Making Books Sing, Inc.

So it goes with AIE grads. Three years out of the program, they’re on the move up this and that career ladder, braiding that ladder, you might say, like so many grapevines in a Mediterranean climate. With apologies to members of the AIE class of 2003 whose places on the grapevine remain a mystery we offer some additional 2003 class notes:

Natalie Bortoli serves as lead educator and developer for visual and performing art at the Chicago Children’s Museum, as noted in an article about her and two others (see “Three Nat(h)alies”) and in an article by her.

Linda Carney-Goodrich works the performance art circuits of Boston, with the Performance Cult and True Story Theater troupes, and teaches a class at the Codman Academy Charter Public School.

Marit Dewhurst works as education coordinator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, serves as teaching fellow to Steve Seidel’s core AIE courses for a couple of years, and continues work on her Ed.D. at HGSE.

Lynn Ditchfield retires from teaching Spanish and theater at Martha’s Vineyard High School in June of 2006, writes a portrait of the Earth Onion Women's Improvisational Theater (1970-1975) on a grant from Case Western Reserve University, and works on creative teaching strategies with Martha’s Vineyard teachers through Fitchburg State College’s Center for Professional Studies.

Lauren Dunwoody becomes program manager at ArtsConnection in New York.

Meredith Forster manages the education program at Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture, Inc., in Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C.

Kristin Ing returns to her native Hawaii to teach high school-accredited ballet and musical theater at Punahou Dance School and to choreograph for both a professional children’s theater and for St. Louis High School’s drama program. She plays the title role in Sweet Charity at Diamond Head Theatre — and announces that she is getting “married to a wonderful man I met in a local bookstore.”

Naomi Kawamura moves from the Richmond Art Center in the San Francisco Bay Area all the way across the water to direct school programs at the Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) in San Francisco.

Albert Ka Hing Liu crosses the Atlantic to be a doctoral student at Queen’s College, University of Cambridge, in the UK.

Wendy Orlando DeLucca returns to the New Haven area to teach English at the Polson Middle School in Madison, Connecticut.

Brooke Rudolf works as a researcher for the Waldorf Schools and for Artsvision in New York.

Jennifer Berner works on a doctoral degree in English and creative writing at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Alison Rhodes, after three years doing research at Project Zero (and co-conducting a recent AIE Alumni Study with Steve Seidel), enters a combined MSW/PhD program in social work at Boston College.

Jeanine Tiemeyer teaches meditation and Suzuki violin as a freelancer, gigs actively on violin, and teaches music at Boulder Arts Academy in Colorado.

Anika Selhorst becomes in-school program director for City Lore in New York (and participates in a 10th AIE anniversary panel in May of 2006).

As far as we know, Mia Kirk and Elizabeth Harrison both still teach in New Jersey and California, respectively, while Rachel Edelman, who served consecutively as school manager at the Indian Hill School of Music outside of Boston and as teacher at the Gan Yeladim Early Learning Center, now has begun work on a doctorate in education at Tufts University.

And Sarah Wong reportedly now works at least two jobs — as music director at Janes United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh and as special education teacher at the University of Pittsburgh.

Several grads of the AIE class of 2003 remain in the great organizations they joined shortly after graduating, including Van Otterloo fellow Paul Akoury, curriculum developer at Teachers 21st Century in Boston; Emily Mello, assistant curator of education at the Contemporary Art Museum in Cincinnati; and Celia Gerard, manager of school programs at the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in Manhattan, art teacher at three NYC public schools, and MFA student in sculpture at the New York Studio School.

The list of AIE grads grows and grows with each passing year — there are as many as 325 alumni now — and so does the grapevine, stretching across time and place in an increasingly complex network that promises to bear fruit for years to come, offering learners far and near the nutritious gifts of this diverse group of educators, all dedicated in their different venues to the perpetuation and inclusive infusion of the arts in education, and all deserving of a tribute from English Romantic poet John Keats, from the opening stanza of his gorgeous ode “To Autumn”:

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
 Conspiring with him how to load and bless
 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run…"