Training: Summer Institute Instructors

Althea Jerome

Althea Jerome has worked in the field of arts education throughout her career. With work experience in K-12 public schools, university, community arts organizations and statewide arts and education organizations, she has continuously pursued the importance of arts learning.

Andrea Schipke

Andrea Schipke is a 3rd grade teacher at Nora Davis Magnet School, a Model Whole School. Andrea has been teaching for six years, with five of those years being at Nora Davis.

Casey Watts

Casey Watts is a 3rd grade teacher at Nora Davis Magnet School, a Model Whole School. Casey has been teaching for six years, all of which have been at Nora Davis.

Deborah Adero Ferguson

Deborah Adero Ferguson, the Dancing Story Lady, is a native of Chicago, Illinois, and a professional actress, dancer, storyteller and arts educator. Ferguson has studied traditional dance, storytelling and music in Africa and has performed throughout the United States.

Dena Kinsey

Dena Kinsey grew up outside of Memphis in Southaven, Mississippi. She is a graduate of Mississippi State University where she received her degree in Elementary Education. She just completed her master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Mississippi College in Clinton.

Dorothy Spencer

Dorothy Spencer grew up in Grenada, Mississippi. She majored in Special Education at MUW in Columbus, Miss. and later received her Master’s in Elementary Education.

Dr. Robert Damm has served with distinction as a creative musician and a caring teacher in the Department of Music at Mississippi State University for 14 years. As Director of Music Education Partnerships, he displays exemplary dedication to upholding and reflecting the MSU principle of promoting cultural diversity and understanding through music.

Eli Yamin’s enthusiasm for music, creativity and community through song permeates his work as a pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. Through his energy and intellectual curiosity, he brings a freshness and riotous joy.

Emilie English

Emilie English is the 8th grade gifted education teacher at Tupelo Middle School. She has taught in the Tupelo Public School District for twenty-one years. She holds a BS degree in Elementary Education Form Mississippi State University and a Masters’ degree from The University of Mississippi.

John Howell

John Howell is the arts facilitator and Whole Schools Project Director at Casey Elementary School in Jackson, MS. He has a background in theatre and worked for three years as an actor and education director at New State Theatre in Jackson.

Julie Owen

Julie Owen lives in Jackson, Mississippi, where her two children attend Jackson Public Schools. When her daughter attended Casey Elementary, a Model Whole School for the MAC, Julie became a parent advocate for arts integration through the Ask4More Arts program of Jackson’s Parents for Public Schools.

Kathryn Lewis

Kathryn Lewis spent the first thirty-two years of her career teaching speech and theatre at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Perkinston, Mississippi. During that period, she performed, wrote or directed plays while maintaining her role as Chair of the Fine Arts Department.

Kay Thomas, Visual Artist/Consultant for the ArtsSmart Institute for Learning, received a MFA in Ceramics from Arizona State University and a BFA in Ceramics from Texas A & M –Commerce, Texas.

Leah Patterson

Leah Patterson is currently a 7th grade art teacher at Tupelo Middle School in Tupelo, Mississippi. She holds her undergraduate, masters, and specialist degree from the University of Mississippi and was recently honored to receive the district’s 2010-2011 Teacher of the Year Award.

Lenore Blank Kelner

Lenore Blank Kelner is an author, educator, educational consultant, keynote speaker and teaching and theatre artist. Lenore has presented her work in all 50 states and abroad and has been a presenter with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for 29 years.

Lisa Geimer

Lisa Geimer is currently the assistant principal and WSI project director of St. Richard Catholic School (PreK3 – Sixth grades) in Jackson, MS. She has worked as a classroom teacher for 20 years in grades 3, 4, and 6.

Marcia Daft

Marcia Daft is the Founder and Artistic Director of “Moving Through Math” and Moving Through Science.” Her company produces and publishes children’s books, instructional materials, and videos that bring arts integrated learning to life in the classroom.

Sarah C. Campbell

Sarah C. Campbell is an author and photo-illustrator who lives in Jackson, Miss. She is the creator of Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator (a 2009 Geisel Honor Book and winner of the Mississippi Library Association’s 2010 Youth Author’s Award) and Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature (selected by the NSTA as a 2011 Outstanding Science Trade Book).

Sheryl M. Thomas

Sheryl M. Thomas is currently a Pre-K teacher at St. Richard Catholic School in Jackson, Mississippi. Her teaching career began over 30 years ago in a third grade classroom.

Wavelength is an award-winning, improvisational theatre ensemble of actors and educators using humor, laughter and spontaneity to train, motivate and inspire educational professionals.