Lakita Edwards

Ed.M. AIE '02

Advocating for the Arts at the National Park Service

Lakita Edwards, a 2002 graduate of the HGSE Arts in Education program (AIE), has been working for the National Parks Service (NPS), at the Harpers Ferry Center for Media Services for the past five years. As an education specialist, she works with media specialists and park staff to insure that the education perspective enhances NPS interpretive media, which includes brochures, films, and both indoor and outdoor exhibits for the park’s visitor center. During her time at the NPS, she has visited over 60 sites, including the Boston African American National Historic Site.  She recently has been working to develop a Teacher’s Institute in preparation for the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s raid on the Harper’s Ferry arsenal in 2009.

Lakita supports the incorporation of the arts in programming at the NPS. She encourages everyone to read the recent report on Art & Community Landscapes, a series of public arts projects that were supported by a multi-year partnership between the New England Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance office. Such projects include the Concord River Greenway Plan in Lowell, Massachusetts, the Community Portrait project in Richford, Vermont, and the site-specific ecosculptures along the Tillamock Indian Tribe’s trail in Tillamock, Oregon. (Visit http://www.nps.gov/ncrc/programs/rtca/news&events/ACL_Final_small.pdf (8MB pdf) for the complete list.)

Lakita was recently invited to attend an NPS meeting about the increased presence of emerging technologies for the purpose of visitor engagement at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia (“the only national park dedicated to the performing arts,” she notes). “I hope to be able to utilize this unique opportunity to advocate for even more arts-related programming!” she says. “It’s on my list of things to do—to make some noteworthy, AIE-related magic happen.”