We are excited to announce Inner-City Arts has received a $150,000, three-year grant from the S. Mark Taper Foundation to support and assist in further advancement of the existing Professional Development Institute program. The Professional Development Institute at Inner-City Arts supports public education through a rigorous program designed to provided classroom teachers with engaging and meaningful strategies for integrating creativity into their core curriculum. Since its start in 1996, the Inner-City Arts Professional Development Institute has provided creativity-based training for more than 10,000 educators, serving a constituency of more than 1,000 educators annually. Through programming offered by the Professional Development Institute, educators, administrators and other partners, many of whom had no arts instruction in their own K-16 education, gain a firsthand experience with the arts and learn to build bridges between the arts and academic subjects.

In addition to general support for the program’s current operations, the grant from the S. Mark Taper Foundation will also support the roll-out of new program offerings, including a re-launch of the series STEAM Connections. Originally piloted in January 2013, STEAM Connections focuses on the links between the Arts, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. STEAM participants explore the intersection of creative process and scientific method through hands-on experiences which provide opportunities to create, test, evaluate, and present their work. The grant will also allow for the development of Intersections — a series of facilitated conversations exploring theory, research and practice in arts education and related fields.

“We’re heading into an exciting three years in the Professional Development Institute, as we launch enhanced services to support teachers at all stages of their careers,” said Jan Kirsch, Director of Professional Development at Inner-City Arts. “ … New programming, new ways of connecting to share strategies and ideas, and new research that deepens our understanding of the power and potential of engaging in the arts and creative practices!”