ArtsECO | 2014-2025

History

This program, funded for over ten years (2014-2025) by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (MACP), and centered in UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts Department of Art & Design, was a partnership among the Art Education program at UWM, Milwaukee Public Schools, and Lynden Sculpture Garden, although we forged many more partnerships with local nonprofits and museums. ArtsECO and its student and professional teacher participants have been backed by a strong and sustainable community of arts organizations, nonprofits and K-16 school partnerships. Over the ten years we ran programs, ArtsECO and its UWM faculty/staff built and maintained a continuum of programmatic supports to help strengthen art education in Milwaukee. ArtsECO was designed to recruit, develop and support art teachers and other teachers who teach through the arts as resilient changemakers connected to a diverse and solid community of support.   

In 2013, during a time of budget cuts to the UW System, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies invited UWM Art Education Professor Kim Cosier and Art & Design Teaching Faculty Josie Osborne to submit a proposal in support of Art Education in Milwaukee. Over the course of the ten-year period, MACP supported ArtsECO with approximately $2.7 million in support to grow and sustain the program. Through that supported programming UWM Peck School of the Arts and UWM School of Education recruited and developed hundreds of thoughtfully engaged, social justice-oriented pre-service teachers and supported them as they grew into inspired veteran teachers and mentors who taught art and/or integrate the arts into their classroom in meaningful ways. ArtsECO also provided supports for MPS teachers and helped to develop teachers’ abilities to leverage and share the rich community assets of Milwaukee and Southeastern Wisconsin.  

ArtsECO, by design, provided a continuum of support and opportunities for artists/teachers from high school student level to veteran teachers, including:  

Pre-college summer classes and programming at UWM

Held at the Peck School of the Arts to encourage students to engage with the arts and to consider Art Education as a career goal. 

Scholarships

Scholarships supported incoming and continuing UW-Milwaukee Art Education and School of Education students interested in arts integration. Students were awarded ArtsECO scholarships each year, helping PSOA to increase the number of students majoring in Art Education or Education with an Arts Integration interest. 

Paid Internships

Paid internships with arts nonprofit organizations and schools citywide were available for art education students and school of education students interested in arts integration. These internships connected students to community, helped to support students financially and built confidence and skill level as well as their arts and education-oriented resume while they were still students. Many students experienced multiple paid internships over their four years at UWM. 

Monthly Teacher Meetups

For teachers of all levels and disciplines, meetups were held both at UWM and at arts and arts-serving organizations around the city. This program helped to build community, develop new hands-on skills, expand awareness of resources, and create greater resilience in a post ACT10 environment. Students and new teachers were able to connect with and learn from veteran teachers. Many veteran teachers attributed these meetups with providing an environment and community that allowed them to strengthen and gain the resilience that they needed to stay in the field during a very challenging time. 

Mentors Program Serving Early Educators in Years 1-3

Veteran or recently retired art teachers mentored new art teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools in their classrooms and during the school day, helping them feel well-supported, get their rooms organized, order supplies and respond effectively to classroom management, school culture and effective curriculum applications. 

Innovative Educators Institute at Lynden Sculpture Garden

When UWM was first invited to submit a proposal to MACP, we invited Lynden Sculpture Garden to be our community partner. MACP’s model was a three-way partnership among a higher education institution, a public school district and a local nonprofit. Polly Morris, Executive Director of Lynden, was happy to join us. Lynden’s Innovative Educator Institute (IEI), led by UWM faculty and teaching artists, brought cross-disciplinary teams of teachers to Lynden during the summer months for course work and curriculum development (reconvening during the school year). IEI teachers also had ArtsECO-funded field trips back to Lynden with their students during the school year to enrich teaching and student experience. 

Art Supply Supports

Art supply supports were awarded to MPS art teachers/ArtsECO alumni to support special projects in their schools that were beyond their art room budgets. This allowed numerous teachers to expand their teaching and curriculum with exciting projects for their students and school communities. 

Art Teacher Certification Cohort (ATCC)

Art Teacher Certification Cohort (ATCC) was an ArtsECO program developed in response to a shortage of MPS Art Teachers, allowing artists with a BFA or MFA who enrolled in UWM’s Art Ed program to gain licensure while teaching full-time in their own classrooms. Qualified teachers/students took evening, weekend and summer classes to prepare for licensure and gain full employment with Milwaukee Public Schools while filling the district’s need for art teachers, ensuring more MPS students had art in their schools. It also helped us to recruit highly qualified art teachers who, due to financial pressures, would not otherwise have been able to leave their previous jobs to enroll at UWM for teacher certification.

ArtsECO Staff and Leadership Team

Two full-time ArtsECO staff members and an ArtsECO Leadership Team comprised of faculty and teaching staff from both PSOA and School of Education met regularly to develop and maintain all grant-funded programming, seek out other sources of funding, build more community partner relationships, develop schedule of meetups, strategize to meet challenges, assure grant requirements were being met and create stronger connections between UWM Peck School of the Arts, UWM School of Education and Milwaukee Public Schools.