Estelle Condra Education Collaborative

by | Aug 8, 2023 | News | 0 comments

Anyone who ever met Estelle Condra never forgot her. She had a charisma and love for life that was unparalleled. Throughout her life she was a champion to the arts and arts education. Borderless Arts TN was honored to call her both a Board member and a friend.

This Fall, Borderless Arts is undertaking a new approach to our school residency programs and we have named this endeavor after Estelle.

For 3 years, Borderless Arts will partner with Norris Elementary in East TN, Union Elementary in Middle TN, and Bartlett Elementary in West TN. Each school will receive a dance, literary, music and visual arts experience with Borderless Arts TN Teaching artists. The artists will focus on the 3rd grade classes and the concept of water.

Through this program, we also plan to involve community partners both within the State and Internationally.

This pilot program will be studied with the end result of both a planned research paper and presentation materials that all of the schools can utilize.

We are very excited about this program. The teaching artists, researchers and schools have been working together over the summer to be able to roll out this new program in September.

We know that the public is used to hearing about our community programs, but our education program is actually the backbone for the organization and the program that our organization was built upon. Therefore, we are so very proud and excited to roll out this new endeavor that we believe may be the only one of its kind in the country with a research focus that has not yet been studied.

Special thanks to our teaching artists: Carlos Calderon, Amanda Galbraith, Brook Hammond, Jennifer James, Les Kerr, Tammy Vice and Erin Walter.

Thanks to our research team: Amanda Galbraith (lead), Selena Elmore, Lori Kissinger and Dr. Lana Seivers

Thanks to our supporters of this program: David and Sarah Condra, CAF America Meta Community Action grants in partnership with Meta Gallatin, International Paper, Public Consulting Group, and the Tennessee Arts Commission.