DES MOINES, IOWA (May 18, 2023) — The Iowa Fine Arts Education Summit is the premiere statewide conference for those engaged in arts education in Iowa.
The day-long summit will be held on Tuesday, June 13, at the FFA Enrichment Center on the Des Moines Area Community College campus in Ankeny. The summit is co-presented every other year by the Iowa Arts Council and Iowa Alliance for Arts Education.
This professional development opportunity is designed for Iowa’s K-12 arts educators, school leaders, teaching artists, nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, and other stakeholders in arts learning and STEAM education. Registration for 2023 Iowa Fine Arts Education Summit is now open.
The 2023 summit will feature a keynote address by Susan Riley, founder and CEO of The Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM. In her talk, Riley will share examples of how connecting our curriculum through the arts standards can be a pathway to addressing pressing and significant educational challenges — from student achievement gaps to community collaboration — and to provide access points through which everyone can participate.
This year’s summit will also include a special track focused on creativity and innovation. Sessions on this track will highlight the convergence of the arts, science, and history in curriculum and explore a variety of instructional approaches through both in and out-of-classroom learning experiences.
“Creativity and innovation are critical-thinking skills our students need to develop to navigate the ever-changing future workforce needs,” Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs Director Chris Kramer said. “The fine arts can open up so many opportunities, from building problem-solving, critical thinking, and public-speaking skills, to increasing engagement in other subjects and developing a creative and innovative mindset that can lead to a variety of career pathways.”
More than 25 sessions will be offered during three break-out blocks in the morning, midday, and afternoon. Each session will be aligned by fine arts discipline (dance, media arts, music, theater, visual arts, or all) and teaching level (elementary, middle, high school, or all).
A $25 Early-Bird Registration rate is available until June 1, 2023.
For a separate course fee, educators attending the Iowa Fine Arts Education Summit can earn one licensure-renewal credit through AEA Online.
The full summit schedule can be accessed here.
The Iowa Arts Council and the Iowa Alliance for Arts Education launched this summit four years ago to help arts educators deepen their understanding of Iowa’s Fine Arts Standards, which were new at that time. The inaugural summit, held at the FFA Enrichment Center in 2019, was followed by a virtual conference two years ago.
The Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and its divisions — the State Historical Society of Iowa, including the State Historic Preservation Office; the Iowa Arts Council; the Iowa Humanities Council; and Produce Iowa-State Office of Film & Media — empower Iowans to build and sustain culturally-vibrant communities by connecting to the people, places, and points of pride that define our state.
