Voices, Data, and Advocacy in Action
At this year’s Annual Face to Face Arts in Education Conference, produced by the Arts in Education Roundtable, Teaching Artist Project hosted a workshop presenting evidence from a brand new white paper on career sustainability for the teaching artist field.
The goal of “Building Sustainable Teaching Artistry: Voices, Data, and Advocacy in Action,” was not only to present the findings of the white paper, but to also work with participants around brainstorming actionable strategies for greater teaching artist sustainability for organizations, funders, and the field as a whole.
With funding from The Altman Foundation, TAP Director Dale Novella Anderson-Lee and TAP Coordinator Libby Mislan worked closely with Research Consultant Katie Rainey to conduct research within the teaching artist field around sustainability. By hosting focus groups with 30 diverse members of the teaching artist field, and surveying over 150 NYC teaching artists, the team accrued new data to define the field’s strengths and weaknesses as it relates to sustainability in 5 key buckets: Career Opportunity, Community & Belonging, Financial Stability, Structural Equity, and Work-Life Balance.
The official report, “A Career, Not a Gig: Building Sustainable Teaching Artistry,” will be finalized in the coming months, and include input from the attending participants at the conference. The report includes a robust recommendations section for organizations, funders, and policy makers, and is intended to be a companion report to the Arts in Education Roundtable’s “Paying for Professionalism 2025: A Report on NYC Teaching Artist Compensation & Employment.” The next steps of the project include disseminating the report to key stakeholders through multiple avenues including in-person “lunch and learns,” and a widespread digital campaign.
In addition to this exciting session, many of TAP’s current trainees volunteered at Face to Face and raved about their experience. Trainee Kai N. remarked, “The Face to Face conference was a rich and joyful experience that reinvigorated my passion for sharing the tools within art making that empower us and create paths to access. I left with so many new tools, games and connections, from ways to recharge and resist, to integrating non verbal communication into the room, to resourcing ourselves to recenter our nervous system. So much abundance! So many resources!”
Community-Word Project is proud to be part of the tapestry of NYC-based arts education organizations working together to strengthen and uplift the teaching artist field!
Post by Libby Mislan, Teaching Artist and Teaching Artist Project Coordinator
