CAPE to Receive $45,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $80 million in grants as part of the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2018. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $45,000 to Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) for the Collaboration Laboratory program. The Art Works category is the NEA’s largest funding category and supports projects that focus on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and/or the strengthening of communities through the arts.
“The variety and quality of these projects speaks to the wealth of creativity and diversity in our country,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Through the work of organizations such as CAPE in Chicago, NEA funding invests in local communities, helping people celebrate the arts wherever they are.”
CAPE’s Executive Director, Amy Rasmussen, responded, “We’re honored to know that the NEA values CAPE’s work in Chicago Public Schools. Since 2004, more than 240 public school teachers and artists have completed CAPE’s Collaboration Laboratory program, and in the coming year, the Art Works grant will help another 40 teachers and artists develop new, creative teaching strategies to engage their students through the arts.”
CAPE’s Collaboration Laboratory is a two-year introductory program that partners professional teaching artists with 20 classroom teachers at 10 Chicago Public Schools. Together, the partners explore and experiment with different ways to help their students learn academic content through visual, performing, and digital arts. By the end of each program cycle, more than 1200 public school students will have new skills for building, navigating, and expressing their knowledge and curiosity across subjects. CAPE’s current Collaboration Laboratory cohort began the program in Fall 2017 and will “graduate” as the 2018-19 school year concludes.
Join the Twitter conversation about this announcement with #NEASpring18. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to arts.gov.
Students at Hibbard Elementary work with teachers and teaching artists in CAPE’s Collaboration Laboratory program
