Making an Art of Education Donna St George

Cindy Todd

GRAND RAPIDS – Cindy Todd, professor and chair of the Art Education and Chief of Art Teaching programs at Kendall College of Art and Blueprint of Ferris State University, has been honored by the National Art Education Association with three separate awards, including the prestigious National Art Educator Award, given annually to one NAEA member for outstanding service on a national level.

Todd has also been selected to receive two NAEA awards at the regional level: the Western Region Fine art Educator Award and the Western Region Higher Educational activity Art Educator Award.

"Cindy Todd is an art teacher'south teacher. She exemplifies everything needed to support our nation's future art educators and the students they volition serve," said NAEA Chief Learning Officeholder Dennis Inhulsen. "Through genuine experience as a classroom art educator, she has transformed herself into someone who nurtures, enlightens, and celebrates learning in and through fine art. Todd, with her purposeful approach to teaching and life, is the perfect role-model for teachers and colleagues alike."

KCAD Dean of Bookish Affairs Charles Wright added, "KCAD congratulates Todd on this well-deserved honor. She has long been a stalwart advocate for and a prime number example of the critical value of creative thinking and learning, both in her leadership of KCAD programs and in her drive to connect and build with others outside of the college who share her passion and vision."

The awards are the latest in a series of high-profile accomplishments for Todd, whose piece of work at KCAD and in the local community both fuels and is fueled by her exemplary leadership in the field of arts didactics at the state and national level.

Preparing KCAD Art Education students to exist not just skillful teachers, but also change agents in the world at big, she says, requires faculty who are actively influencing the field at the macro level.

"My colleagues and I know that the leading fine art education programs are the ones driven by a boots-on-the-ground approach, by people who are plugged into the broader conversations effectually the part of creativity the classroom, the neuroscience of learning, and the sociopolitical realities of K-12 education," said Todd. "At the same time, it'south critical that the ideas we bring to the bigger table are first tested and proven hither locally. If you're non practicing it and seeing gains, it's never going to tip the calibration."

Since joining the NAEA and the Michigan Art Education Clan (MAEA) equally a professional in 1999, Todd's involvement in both organizations has grown exponentially. From participation in various conferences, summits, and leadership forums, she rapidly transitioned to committee service, keynote presentations, and eventually, leadership roles that heightened her power to make an impact.

In 2007, she was named to a ii-year term as President Elect of the MAEA, followed by successive two-year terms as President and Past President. Equally president, Todd represented the MAEA on the NAEA National Delegate Associates and adamant sites for and supervised piece of work on the MAEA annual conferences. She also co-authored policy for the MAEA and updated the organisation'southward bylaws to ensure that practices were fair and appropriate.

In 2013 Todd was appointed to a special NAEA Leadership Task Force that worked closely with the NAEA board of directors to research and revamp the organization'south existing leadership and outreach strategies. The group's efforts ultimately established the NAEA School for Fine art Leaders, an almanac seven-month-long program that enables art educators to experientially learn quality leadership practices, implement them, and reflect on the outcomes as a group. The goal of the program is to empower participants to positively influence local and state educational policies while also edifice a nation-wide network of fine art pedagogy leaders and advocates.

In 2014, Todd was named to a 2-year term as Vice President Elect of the NAEA's Western Region, and completed her 2-year term as Vice President in 2018. As Vice President, she chaired a group of NAEA regional presidents that addressed interests and issues at the state and national level and worked together to writer official NAEA position statements and organize action plans for implementing organization-wide initiatives. Most notably, Todd and her colleagues instituted an equity and inclusion initiative that has prompted immersive grooming programs for educators and students, among other targeted activity plans.

Exterior of her extensive involvement in both organizations, Todd is an invited participant on Michigan's Arts Round Table, a team of representatives from various arts organizations in Michigan that helped shape the state's 2018 response to the Every Student Succeeds Human activity (ESSA), the Usa law passed in December of 2015 that governs the nation'south Thou-12 public education policy. She and her colleagues successfully lobbied for the inclusion of arts-related criteria in the state's school assessment model—which ensured that Championship I funding could be used to support fine art education interventions—establishing the apply of "STEAM" (Science, Engineering, Engineering, Arts, and Math) every bit a cornerstone of education policy rather than the outmoded "STEM" concept.

"Michigan has at present developed a report card for successful schools in which 14% of the grade is based on access to and time spent on art education. That's never been the case," said Todd. "Schools are now highly incentivized to prioritize funding for the arts, and that'due south a stiff indication that the State Board of Education understands how of import creativity is to Thou-12 instruction and to the hereafter of our state and nation."

Long earlier Michigan's embracing of STEAM, all the same, Todd was helping build a case for its importance at the local level. In 2010, she co-created the Thou Rapids Fine art Museum (GRAM) educational plan Language Artists, which integrates literacy and the visual arts to help 3rd graders develop strong reading and writing skills aslope critical thinking and collaboration skills. Since its inception, the plan has been awarded three separate grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and has helped improve writing proficiency scores on the country of Michigan's Yard-STEP standardized test by xl%.

Since 2011, Todd has been a key designer on the collaborative squad that created and guides the curriculum blueprint of Grand Rapids Public Schools' (GRPS) newest theme school, the Public Museum Schoolhouse. She and KCAD Acquaintance Professor Gayle DeBruyn contributed broad expertise in design thinking and innovative pedagogy to development of the curriculum, which blends experiential, place-based learning with an emphasis on artistic, transdisciplinary problem solving into what'due south known as place-based design. Following a highly successful launch in 2015, the Public Museum Schoolhouse won ane of ten $x meg grants awarded through the XQ Super Schoolhouse Projection in 2016.

Aslope her colleagues, DeBruyn and KCAD Fine art Educational activity Professor Donna St. John, Todd has also served since 2009 as a community consultant for Coit Creative Arts Academy, another GRPS theme schoolhouse that infuses visual and performing arts into all aspects of its curriculum.

At KCAD, Todd'southward experiences have helped her create a dynamic learning environment where students are always on the cutting border, plugged into the latest brain enquiry and pedagogical thinking too every bit how the systems governing K-12 education in America are evolving. As a result, students are engaging with their field, and succeeding in it, at a very high level.

In both 2017 and 2018, a KCAD Art Education educatee was named the NAEA's Preservice Fine art Educator of the Year, a prestigious award that'south rarely given to students from the same institution in successive years. In 2017, Chief of Art Instruction alumna Tricia Erickson ('10) was named Art Educator of the Year by the MAEA. And just this year, Art Educational activity pupil Lynn Loubert¬ was elected to the NAEA Board of Directors for a two-year appointment as Preservice Division Director Elect, followed by a two-twelvemonth date every bit Director.

"If we're non encouraging our students to go across their college courses and enlarge their perspective, and then we're doing them a disservice. If ours' are the only views our students are exposed to, we run a risk them becoming most-sighted." said Todd. "We get our students involved in the big picture because we don't just want them to personally succeed; we desire them to atomic number 82."

"Todd'due south accomplishment in being recognized with all iii of these awards in one year, and peculiarly the 2019 National Art Educator Award, is a unique acknowledgement of her energy, intelligence, and effectiveness as a teacher and a leader in the field of art didactics," said KCAD President Leslie Bellavance. "The entire customs of KCAD congratulates her. We know that our students and our entire institution benefit from having such a remarkable colleague in our midst and nosotros are honored to piece of work with her every day."

Todd and the other 2019 NAEA awardees were officially honored at the 2019 National Convention, which took place in Boston March 14-16.

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Source: https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/archive/2019/april/todd.htm

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