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ACE/Florida Alliance for Arts Education
P.O. Box 1476
Winter Park, FL 32790
phone: 407-488-8868
info@faae.org
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Meet our Presenters
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Cindy Balistreri, Vice President for Education
Fine Arts Program Specialist, Sarasota County School Board
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Lucinda G. Balistreri has worked as an arts educator
in the Sarasota County school district for 33 years. She graduated
from the Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree
in Music Education and from the University of South Florida with
a master’s degree in Education Administration/Supervision.
She taught elementary music, middle school chorus, pre-school music,
and general classroom for Grades 4 and 5. She has been selected
Elementary Teacher of the Year (1992) Sarasota County and Florida
Music Educator of the Year (1994) the Florida Music Educators’ Association.
She has served on writing committees at the state level for the
Sunshine State Standards, Course Descriptions, and Grade Level
Expectations. She has served as president of the Florida Elementary
Music Educators Association, the Florida Music Supervision Association,
and is the past president of the Florida Music Educators’ Association.
Her current position in Sarasota County is as the Fine Arts Program
Specialist in the Curriculum Department of the school district. |
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Susan Burke
Sarasota Community/ School Partnership for the
Arts
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Bio coming soon. |
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Jennifer Coolidge
Executive Director, Museum of Florida Art
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Coolidge has served as the Executive Director for
the Museum of Florida Art since 2001; Executive Director Arts for
a Complete Education, Florida Alliance for Art Education, ACE/FAAE
(1995-2001); Education Coordinator for Atlantic Center for the
Arts and the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston
Salem, NC and others in North Carolina. She has also served as
a consultant, presenter and grant panelist for such organizations
as The Center for Human Rights and Civil Liberties at The University
of Southern Mississippi; Arts Extension Service, University of
Massachusetts; ICARE, Initiative for Cultural Arts and Education
in Cleveland, Ohio; United Arts of Central Florida, Florida Division
of Cultural Affairs, and Rochester Contemporary Art Center in Rochester,
NY and the Arts Council of Asheville, NC. Coolidge graduated with
a B.A. in Fine Art from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC and
completed a fellowship with the Denali Initiative on Social Enterprise
in 2000 through The Kauffman Center on Entrepreneurial Leadership.
Coolidge has received such awards as an Ambassador of the Arts
Award from Florida First Lady, Columba Bush, in 2005; Distinguished
Service Award from the Florida Music Educators Association in 2002,
and the ACE of Hearts Award from ACE/FAAE in 2001.
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Steven E. Dragon
Principal, Gocio Elementary School
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Bio coming soon. |
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Dr. Linda Lovins
Arts Education Program Specialist, Department
of Education
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Dr. Linda Lovins, Performing and Fine Arts Program
Specialist at the Florida Department of Education (DOE), is an
experienced choral and general music educator with degrees from
the Crane School of Music, State University College at Potsdam,
New York (B.M., M.M.) and The Florida State University School of
Music (Ph.D.). She taught public school music from 1980 to 1998
and held a number of district-, county-, and state-level leadership
positions. While working on her doctorate, Dr. Lovins was an assistant
to June Hinckley, then Music and Fine Arts Program Specialist at
the Florida DOE during Ms. Hinckley’s tenure as President
of MENC: The National Association for Music Education from
1998 to 2000. In that two-year period, Dr. Lovins organized and
presented numerous workshops for arts educators across the state,
including workshops focused on literacy and the arts, FCAT and
the arts, and training workshops for the Florida League of
Arts Teachers (FLOAT). She then worked at the Center
for Performance Technology (CPT), where she edited and co-authored
middle and high school arts and non-arts course descriptions for
the DOE. Following completion of her doctorate, Dr. Lovins wrote
the music education curriculum for, and taught at, Buffalo State
College in New York State during the 2002-2003 school year. Since
returning to Tallahassee, Dr. Lovins has been the Director of Music
at Lafayette Presbyterian Church. She has also served as Program
Director for Arts for a Complete Education/Florida Alliance for
Arts Education (ACE/FAAE). Dr. Lovins is very passionate about
children, their potential, and their implicit right to a high-quality
arts program as an integral part of a world-class education. |
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Peggy Nolan
Visual Arts/Drama K-12 Resource Teacher, Brevard
County Public Schools
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Bio coming soon. |
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Mary Palmer
Mary Palmer and Associates, LLC
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Dr. Mary Palmer is President of Mary
Palmer & Associates, LLC, a consulting firm specializing
in the arts and education. Drawing on her four decades in public
education and community leadership, Mary works with schools throughout
the country to assist them in developing and implementing arts
integration programs to maximize student success and enliven
schools. Her most recent position was as Professor and Coordinator
of Graduate Studies in Music Education at the University of Central
Florida, Orlando; she previously served as Dean of the UCF College
of Education. Palmer is senior author of Pre-Kindergarten through
grade 8 music textbook series published by Silver Burdett Ginn.
She is the Founder, first and current Director of Florida’s Arts
for a Complete Education/ Florida Alliance for Arts Education organization
and has been instrumental in developing programs and policies
affecting arts education in Florida. She sits on numerous Boards
including Florida Theatrical Association, VSA Arts of Florida,
Florida Music Educators Association and A Gift for Teaching.
Her intergenerational program for babies from birth to twenty-four
months, Connect with Music, has gained national attention.
She has established award-winning collaborative programs with
Walt Disney World, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Junior
Achievement and others. She was a recipient of many awards, including
the Arts Recognition Award from the Florida Department of State. |
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Tom Pearson, Ed.D. Vice President
of Coalitions
K-12 Arts Education Administrator, Palm Beach County Public
Schools
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| Dr. Tom Pearson is the Arts Education Administrator
for the School District of Palm Beach County, and a twenty-nine-year
veteran in the field of education. For twenty of those years, he
taught band at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, and
conducted two community bands. Dr. Pearson is a Past President of
the Mississippi Bandmasters Association, where he taught band for
12 years before moving to Florida. Since moving to Florida, he has
served as District Chairman for FBA District 14 and Chairman of the
FBA Ethics Committee for two terms.
He has served as the Vice President for Governmental Relations
on the Florida Alliance for Arts Education/Arts for a Complete
Education Board of Directors and the Governmental and Community
Relations Chair for the Florida Music Educators’ Association.
He is presently serving as the President of the Florida Music
Supervisors Association and a board member on the Florida School
Music Association. Dr. Pearson also serves on the education boards
of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts and the
Norton Museum of Art.
Dr. Pearson was the Magnet/Choice Program Specialist and Acting
Director for the School District of Palm Beach County. Dr. Pearson
is a frequent conference presenter for student recruitment/assignment,
and partnership and funding at the International. He has been
an adjunct professor for Palm Beach Community College and Nova
Southeastern University. Dr. Pearson has adjudicated for the
Florida Bandmasters Association, and Bands of America, throughout
the United States. |
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Bruce Rodgers
Executive Director, The Hermitage
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Bruce Rodgers is a playwright whose work has been
produced at major professional theatre throughout the U.S., Ireland,
and in Paris. As a producer he has either worked or affiliated
with the GeVa Theatre in Rochester, NY; the McCarter Theatre in
Princeton, NJ; and the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL.
He holds an B.S. in Music Education from the Crane School of Music,
SUNY Potsdam; and an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from
Indiana University. Through the mid- and late 1980s was a creative
consultant for corporations such as Johnson & Johnson; Scott
Paper Company; AT&T; Bell Communications Research; Bell South;
D'Arcy, Masius, Benton, and Bowles' and BBD&O - Chicago among
many other American Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. He is the co-author
of Innovation Inc., Unlocking Creativity in the Workplace, a once-popular
book on creativity, now available on Amazon for $.49. |
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Andrea Tobin
Tobin Music Studio
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Putting Creativity to Work (Middle School Career Exploration
Project)
Andrea Tobin recently completed her Master’s Degree in Music
Education at the University of Central Florida. She received her
Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education from the Florida State
University and has taught in Florida’s public schools for 18
years, teaching Middle School and Jr. High School Band, Chorus, and
General Music. Her bands have received superior ratings at Concert
Music Performance Assessments and she has had numerous students in
the All-County and All-State performing ensembles.
Mrs. Tobin has been teaching privately for the last four
years, while her daughter, Hannah, has been of preschool age.
She remains an active adjudicator, conductor, and clinician
and has served on various committees at the district and state
levels. She has also been teaching babies and their special
adults, in the Connect with Music program. Mrs. Tobin was selected
as “Teacher of the Year” at Teague Middle School,
in Altamonte Springs (Seminole County) and has served as the
conductor of the Florida All-State Middle School Honor Band.
She enjoys the tremendous enthusiasm and potential of the middle
school aged student!
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Marian Winters, Treasurer
Executive Director, VSA arts of Florida
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| Marian is the Executive Director, VSA arts of Florida,
Visiting Faculty, University of South Florida, College of Education. She
received her Master’s degree in Urban Studies, University of
Texas and holds a BA in Sociology, University of Florida. Marian
has worked as a Director of Programs, and Program Consultant, VSA
arts of Florida; Program Director, AmeriCorps Arts USF and Visiting
Faculty, College of Fine Arts; Administrative Director, Artists
Unlimited; Executive Director, Tampa Bay Children’s Chorus;
Founder and First Executive Director, Children’s Museum of
Tampa. Marian has been a grants panelist for the State of Florida
Division of Cultural Affairs and a Board Member of the Arts Council
of Hillsborough County. |
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