Read more about our 2019-2020 fellowship cohort Read more about our 2020-2021 fellowship cohort
Overview
Americans for the Arts partnered with The Joyce Foundation and American Express Foundation to introduce the Arts & Culture Leaders of Color (ACLC) Fellowship.
Americans for the Arts research, echoing research by the Hewlett Foundation, suggested that emerging and mid-career leaders of color were not advancing to senior leadership positions or were migrating out of the field rather than up through it. Possible drivers, based on listening charettes hosted in each city, included: structural and institutional racism, limited access to senior-level arts administrators of color, feelings that exceptional work is undervalued or unrecognized by powerbrokers, a disconnected professional community of peers, the perceptions that opportunity and welcome would be better elsewhere, among others.
The ACLC Fellowship was a two-year pilot that modeled systemic national arts leadership change through professional development and mentor-guided learning opportunities for emerging and mid-career arts leaders of color across arts disciplines. The 2019-2020 cohort included fellows from Chicago, Cleveland, and Indianapolis and the 2020-2021 cohort included fellows from Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and St. Paul. Margie Johnson-Reese was the lead faculty of the ACLC Fellows, in concert with national experts from 4Culture, Blood Orange, City of Oakland, Goucher College, Lincoln Center Education, Smithsonian Institution, The Theater Offensive, University of Texas at Dallas, and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Fellows’ Testimonials
“This fellowship experience has reshaped the way I see my own contribution to the artistic community. As an emerging professional artist, I was able to be exposed to the other side of the industry by taking a deeper dive into policy-writing, funding, and seeing who sits at the decision-making table. It supports the work that I do in a way that I didn’t understand before.”
—Joseph Medcalf, 2020-2021 ACLC Fellow
“As a person of color working in the creative sector, I have seen a lot of focus on elevating eurocentric aesthetics and accomplishments. However, in the ACLC Fellowship, we were able to dedicate time to the things that matter to us, define us, and celebrate our cultures.”
—Jainelle Robinson, 2020-2021 ACLC Fellow
“My experience in ACLC helped me deepen my understanding of what it means to be a practitioner of arts administration. Along with other fellows, I was given an opportunity to exercise language, and to experiment with ideas and behaviors that I utilize not just in my job, nor my career, but in my formation of my own mettle.”
—Gibran Villalobos, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
“The fellowship brought together a cohort of strong leaders who were strengthened by leader Margie Reese. The magic that was created by just being in the room with these individuals is unprecedented, but is the future of arts leadership.”
—Andrew Aaron Valdez, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
Fellows’ Contributions to ARTSBlog
The Journey is the Thing by Leah Harris, 2020-2021 ACLC Fellow
Envisioning My Future Self: Reflections from a Future Leader of Color by Meccah M. Martin, 2020-2021 ACLC Fellow
Supervision. by J. Gibran G. Villalobos, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
Pre-historic Optimism in the Age of Corona by Andrew A. Valdez, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
Essential in a Different Way by Kavita Mahoney, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
Do those values come in my size? by Aseelah Shareef, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
I Waited For the Sun by Michele Crawford, 2019-2020 ACLC Fellow
Outcomes
Throughout the duration of the program, ACLC fellows were provided with:
- Ongoing professional development, support, and networking that promoted learning and growth, a sense of leadership, career vision, equity orientation, and business skills.
- Pathways to leadership for a diverse set of arts management professionals in the Great Lakes region, particularly those who felt that their race or ethnicity has negatively affected their leadership prospects.
- The promotion and nurturing of a culture of racial diversity, equity, and inclusion in the arts management field, within arts organizations, and in the community.
The fellowship supported fellows in their work to advance arts institutional missions, as well as their individual career trajectories, through the following five core themes:
- Learning and Growth
- Career Vision
- Management and Business Skills for Leaders
- Leadership as Strategy for Individual and Organizational Growth
- Leadership as Instrument for Equity
Program Partners + Sponsors
The Joyce Foundation
American Express Foundation
Central Indiana Community Foundation
The George Gund Foundation
Greater Milwaukee Foundation
Distracted Globe Foundation
Jerome Foundation
