CCA TI Instructors & Staff
The Teaching Institute faculty is a dynamic roster of regional and international educators, artists and arts professionals.
2008 Visiting Scholars
Arnold Aprill is Founding and Creative Director of Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE), a network of artists and arts organizations, educators and schools that are dedicated to school improvement through arts education partnerships. He comes from a background in professional theater as an award-winning director, producer and playwright. Arnold has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is one of the co-authors of Learning Partnerships: Improving Learning in Schools with Arts Partners in the Community, published by the Arts Education Partnership, and is one of the co-editors of Renaissance in the Classroom: Arts Integration and Meaningful Learning. Arnold consults nationally and internationally on the role of the arts in effective school improvement. He has been recognized for exceptional leadership by the Chicago Community Trust and by the Leadership for a Changing World initiative supported by the Ford Foundation.
Lois Hetland, EdD, is an associate professor of arts education at the Massachusetts College of Art and research associate and principal investigator at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on learning, understanding, and teaching in the arts and other disciplines. Her most recent book, Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education, has been widely reviewed in academic publications and also received attention in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times Magazine. From 1996–2005 she served as founding education chair of Project Zero's annual summer institutes. She presents regularly at scholarly conferences, dabbles in urban ephemeral art through poetry and art installations in public spaces, and consults nationally and internationally on professional development and curriculum to public, private, and international educators.
Teaching Institute Instructors
Dafney Blanca Dabach is an Arts Education Faculty Fellow at CCA and has taught photography for over 14 years. Her most recent photographs, from the series "Documenting the Undocumented," are in issue #23 of the Five Fingers Review. Dabach is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education in the Department of Language, Literacy, Society, and Culture. From an immigrant family herself, she is particularly interested in how arts integration can provide more learning opportunities for immigrant youth and English-language learners. BA, UC Berkeley; MA in Education, UC Berkeley.
Todd Elkin is a visual artist and art educator who has received numerous awards, including the 826 Valencia Teacher of the Month Award and NUMMI Most Promising Teacher Award. His focus inspires students to become visually literate and encourage them to see how art connects with and informs other areas of life. Elkin is currently an art teacher at Washington High School in Fremont, California. BFA, San Francisco Art Institute.
Liz Harvey, an artist and educator, is the director VTS programming for San Francisco Bay Visual Thinking Strategies, as well as the arts integration coach for East Oakland School of the Arts high school. As a teaching artist, Ms. Harvey has served as an artist in residence for schools, museums, and community centers in Southern California and the Bay Area. Her work in sculpture has been exhibited internationally. She is the recipient of the California Arts Council Fellowship in Sculpture (1996) and two Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department Artist in Residence grants. BA, University of Nevada, Reno; MFA, California State University, Long Beach.
Stephanie Violet Juno is a multimedia performance artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including MoMA and Poets House in New York; LACE in Los Angeles; Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada; and Arches Theater and Center for Contemporary Art in Glasgow. Ms. Juno has lectured at various universities, including Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, and UC San Diego. She currently works as a K–12 arts learning activist for the Alameda County Office of Education and has taught Making Learning Visible workshops for K–12 school faculties, school district teams, and state education conferences. BFA, Washington University; MFA, UC San Diego.
Alexandra Kulka Wells is a photographer and arts educator. She began her career teaching photography to college-bound teens at Upward Bound Urban Scholars of Harlem, NY. After returning to her native Oakland as a 1st grade teacher, Alexandra was awarded a Bilingual Education Grant for Oakland Educators. She went on to be a founding teacher of Oakland’s ASCEND school, then began working with the The Museum of Children’s Art (MOCHA) as an arts integration coach. Alexandra’s pedagogy is influenced by frameworks such as Expeditionary Learning, Outward Bound, Teaching for Understanding and by the Reggio Emilia approach. BA, UC Santa Cruz; MA, San Francisco State University.
Arzu Mistry is an arts educator, muralist, and mixed-media visual artist and dancer. She received an MA in art education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she recently taught a course at Project Zero Summer Institute. Mistry currently lives in Oakland and Bangalore, India. In each place, she works with varying types of educational institutions, from private schools to schools for urban poor and from museums to nonprofits. She places a strong emphasis on integrating performing and visual arts with core curricula in her work with youth and adults. Throughout all of her work she maintains a high level of dedication and enthusiasm to the arts as a medium of personal empowerment, positive social change, and an essential connector in teaching and learning.
John Scott is a theater director/facilitator who has used Theater of the Oppressed techniques to explore issues of homelessness, racism, oppression, homophobia, and classism for over 10 years. He has orchestrated workshops that focus on community building and diversity issues throughout the United States and in Johannesburg, South Africa. Scott worked as artistic director for the documentary, Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, and is currently a diversity consultant for California College of the Arts and Veterans for Hope. He is currently completing his masters in counseling psychology with an emphasis on drama therapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. BA, Antioch University, Seattle.
Jennifer Stuart is an artist and art educator with over 18 years of teaching experience. As a professional development coach, she has worked with teacher educators and has served as a faculty fellow for Harvard's Project Zero Summer Institute and Wide World online courses. Stuart was the lead faculty, pedagogic coach, and manager for the Teaching Institute at its inception in her role as art education program manager for CCA Center for Art and Public Life, as well as a CCA adjunct professor. She currently teaches at the Friends School in San Francisco, and previously taught at San Francisco Day School. In addition to her experience as an artist and teacher, Stuart has cofounded and codirected Out of Site, a nonprofit center for arts education in San Francisco. BFA, Rhode Island School of Design; MA in Art Education, Columbia University.
Teaching Institute Staff
Ann Wettrich is the codirector of CCA’s Center for Art and Public Life. She founded and directs the SMART Teaching Concentration Program and is a member of the Community Arts faculty. She established and oversees the center’s CCA Teaching Institute and arts education partnership programs. A proactive Bay Area leader and 30-year veteran in the field, Wettrich has initiated, directed, and secured funding for programs, events, and publications that systemically address issues of teaching, learning, educational equity, and social justice through the arts. She has worked for numerous art organizations and educational institutions and serves on community advisory boards. She is an advocate and spokesperson for the arts in education and currently serves as commissioner on the Alameda County Arts Commission and a steering committee member for the Alameda County Office of Education’s Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership.
Tana Johnson is art education program manager at the Center for Art and Public Life. She has been an active participant in San Francisco’s arts education community since 1994. Her expertise lies in collaboration, media development, curriculum design, and filmmaking. Her short experimental films and documentaries have screened at film festivals both locally and abroad. Before coming to CCA she was at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she led a team of writers and designers creating award-winning interactive features. She directed and produced many artist videos and developed SFMOMA Artcasts, the Museum’s cutting-edge podcast series that features world-class artists, writers, musicians, curators, and museum visitors in dialogue about art. She also designed and implemented several youth programs at SFMOMA.
