Arts Learning

Collaborators: 

Tamara Goldbogen
Monica Pendergast
Erinne Roundy

Approximately 40,000 students in Ogden, Weber and Davis school districts have benefitted from the Weber State University Arts Learning Collaborative since its creation in 2013. For efforts to bring arts to Utah classrooms, the collaborative was honored with the 2017 Exemplary Collaboration Award.

The collaborative has a two-prong approach: teach teachers how to incorporate the arts in all their classroom curriculum and reach students with inspiring arts programs.

The collaborative is housed in both the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities and the Jerry & Vickie Moyes College of Education. The collaborative, which now provides enhanced art education to 76 elementary schools in the WSU service area, supports the statewide Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program.

The collaborative also hosts an annual Arts Integration Conference at WSU, as well as traveling workshops that help hundreds of classroom teachers learn to integrate the arts with other core content areas, including math, science and English. Teachers who have attended the conference have commented on the excitement and energy arts integration brings to problem-solving in all subjects.

“It is both an honor and a privilege for me to continue Beverley Taylor Sorenson’s great legacy of support for arts education in Utah,” said Tamara Goldbogen, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Endowed Chair for Arts Learning at WSU. “We are grateful to be part of the network of universities across the state in support of arts integration. We know firsthand the more we can engage the curiosity and imagination of students through the arts, the more motivated they are to learn.”

Under the direction of Goldbogen; Monica Pendergast, program coordinator; and Erinne Roundy, program assistant, the collaborative actively partners with Cathy Jensen, Utah State Board of Education, and Lisa Cluff, Art Works for Kids. The WSU advisory committee is comprised of Vincent Bates, teacher education assistant professor; Dianna Huxhold, art education assistant professor; Jenny Kokai, performing arts associate professor; Louise Moulding, teacher education professor; Thom Priest, music professor; Jack Rasmussen, Moyes College of Education dean; Amanda Sowerby, dance professor; Scott Sprenger, Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities dean; and Kathleen Stevenson, visual arts professor.