AYCD Alumni
Iaroslava Babenchuk
(Group 1, Practicum Site: Chicago
Children’s Choir)
Iaroslava works as the Administrative Assistant to Columbia College Chicago’s Title III Office under the direction of the Assistant Vice President for Academic Support. Iaroslava supports Columbia College’s efforts to enhance student learning, increase student satisfaction, and become a more student-centered institution with an ultimate goal to increase retention and graduation rates.
Keenya Brown
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Street-Level
Youth Media)
Suzanne Earhart
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Redmoon Theatre)
Suzanne is the Executive Artistic Director at Vila d’Arts, a small school just outside of Barcelona, Spain. The school uses art throughout its teaching. Suzanne recently directed a Halloween shadow puppet show influenced by her AYCD practicum at Redmoon Theater.
Marlin Estrada
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Najwa Dance Corps)
Marlin is the Executive Director/Supervising Instructor at ‘Matli Arts Center, located at Piotrowski Park in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. The Center teaches Creative Movement, Pre-Ballet, Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Latino dance, with programming that includes a female teen dance group, ‘Matli Dance Crew, and the Saturday Dance Academy for girls ages three to 13. Partnership programming with Piotrowski Park includes outreach dance programs with the park’s Teen Club, Girls Scout program, and Gymnastics Program. All ‘Matli programs culminate in final dance recitals and showcases.
Cyndy Fike
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Association House)
Immediately following graduation, Cyndy worked as a Youth Counselor in the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice’s Therapeutic Wilderness Program. While there, she was able to secure equipment to start a recording studio for the incarcerated boys. Cyndy says the boys are always rapping or writing poetry on the trail. “It has been cool to help the organization find ways to incorporate the arts into the programming. I definitely owe this to my time at Columbia … go AYCD.”
Kristen Gurbach
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Free Street Programs)
Kristen is an Outreach Coordinator at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Metropolis offers interactive, educational workshops in theater, dance, music, performance and improvisation. Run by experienced teaching artists and performers, the workshops help teachers integrate performing arts into their classroom and foster a love of the arts with their students.
Faith Humphrey-Hill
(Group 1, Practicum Site: Pathways to Development)
Faith is the Executive Director of the Oak Park Art League (OPAL), the oldest community arts center in the western suburbs of Chicago. Since 1921, OPAL has developed, nurtured and exhibited the work of local artists through their galleries and studio. OPAL believes in the freedom of expression and the importance of the creative voice. Its mission is to provide access to the disciplines and development processes so that artists of all ages, from amateur to hobbyist and enthusiast to professional, may refine their unique creative voice.
Tristan James
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Young Chicago Authors)
Tristan is the Founder and Producer of Proletariat Productions, a socially conscious, not-for-profit organization that specializes in music recording, production and artist promotion. It offers education and consultation services for youth and adults at beginner and professional levels. Proletariat Productions also runs a community record label that works to produce and develop talents that will create a culture of positive change. The label works closely with its artists to create the most fair and positive relationship it can offer.
Shawn Renee Lent
(Group 1, Practicum Site: About Face
Youth Theatre)
Shawn is the Arts Integration Program Specialist for the Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP) at Columbia College Chicago. Arts integration training and program development are key to CCAP's efforts to establish sustainable partnerships between Columbia College, the community and Chicago Public Schools. Arts integration is a unique teaching practice that weaves the visual, media, performing and literary arts into classrooms to engage students in their own learning. Shawn was also recently selected as one of 100 outstanding young professionals from North America and Europe to participate in Transatlantic Network 2020. This group of extraordinary, young professionals will gather in person and online through 2020 to establish a new cross-border dialogue at a critical time, to learn about and identify solutions to global problems, and to build a cohort of leaders for the next generation. In September 2008, Shawn joined the other participants for the inaugural summit in Dublin and Belfast.
Tara Malik
(Group 4, Practicum Site: About Face
Youth Theatre)
Tara works as Program Staff of Beyondmedia Education. Beyondmedia Education's mission is to collaborate with under-served and under- represented women, youth and communities to tell their stories, connect their stories to the world around us, and organize for social justice through the creation and distribution of media arts. In her own youth arts work, Tara helped form The New Orleans Kid Camera Project, a community based arts program created to address the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on children returning home to New Orleans. Tara is the co-founder of One Bird.
Sarah Meyer
(Group 1, Practicum Site: Young Chicago Authors)
Sarah works as the Program Director at New Urban Arts in Providence, Rhode Island. New Urban Arts is a nationally recognized, interdisciplinary arts studio for high school students and emerging artists in Providence. Its mission is to build a vital community that empowers young people to develop a creative practice they can sustain throughout their lives. Founded in 1997, New Urban Arts serves 125 high school students in the Providence Public High Schools and 15 artists each year. It provides studio, exhibition space, and mentoring for young artists who explore the visual, performing, and literary arts through yearlong, free, out-of-school programs. It has been named one of 50 premiere arts and youth development programs in the country for four consecutive years.
Lee Ann Norman
(Group 2, Practicum Site: Young Chicago Authors)
Lee Ann works as the Senior Program Specialist for Environment, Culture, and Special Events in the Chicago Park District. She works in the department that provides such activities as movies in the park, fishing or camping, and art programs. This department creates and implements the District's outdoor and environmental education programs, coordinates programs for the District’s 12 cultural centers, provides leadership in the development of after-school, youth employment and summer programs and produces special events and activities for families. Lee Ann also serves on the board of directors of Insight Arts.
Erin Patinkin
(Group 1, Practicum Site: Redmoon Theater)
Erin is the Membership Program Associate for the National Council of Jewish Women in New York. The National Council of Jewish Women is a volunteer organization inspired by Jewish values that works through a program of research, education, advocacy, and community service to improve the quality of life for women, children and families, and strives to ensure individual rights and freedoms for all. Erin also serves on the board of directors of Insight Arts.
Elizabeth Parrott
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Pulaski
Community School)
Liz works as a Resource Coordinator at Pulaski Community School through the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College Chicago. The Community Schools initiative at CCAP works to improve student learning and build stronger families and healthier communities. By uniting the most important influences in children's lives—school, family and community—this initiative fully supports their learning and development. The programs and projects offered in Community Schools provide a full-service approach to education by addressing the whole child, including physical, social and emotional, as well as academic needs. Schools become the center of their community, ensuring that students have the creative, supportive environments necessary to succeed.
JeQuana Na-Tae’ Thompson
(Group 1, Practicum Site: Chicago Park District)
Na-Tae’ is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of True Star Foundation. The foundation has six after school and summer programs that produce True Star magazine, a quarterly publication with a circulation of 100,000, geared to urban teens ages 12-18. The only magazine of its kind that focuses on issues in the urban community, True Star employs over 150 students in the Chicago area. Students learn photography, graphic design, journalism, sales and marketing, as well as event planning. In addition, Na-Tae’ is a Program Manager and Consultant for The Support Group, where she assists with the implementation of various events, including the Chicagoland All-star Classic Celebrity Basketball Game and Teen Summit.
Jacinta Wallace
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Music Theatre Workshop)
Jacinta is the Director of School and Community Partnerships at the Sherwood School of Music at Columbia College Chicago. A premiere place for music instruction in Chicago, Sherwood offers individual lessons in 15 instruments and voice; and group classes for toddlers, children, teens, adults and seniors. Located in the historic South Loop neighborhood, Sherwood has a committed and professional faculty, friendly program coordinators and a diverse student body. Jacinta also continues to work as a model.
Ashley Walls
(Group 4, Practicum Site: Chicago Youth Centers)
Ashley is the Program Coordinator for the Teen Reach program at the Proviso-Lyden Council for Community Action (PLCCA), located in Maywood and serving residents of Cook County’s Proviso and Leyden townships and the municipality of Norridge. The PLCCA works to create, through comprehensive and coordinated program activities, a climate of awareness within which conscious, self-directed social change toward the elimination of poverty can take place on the part of individuals, families and community institutions.
Ashley Winston
(Group 3, Practicum Site: Chicago
Children’s Choir)
Ashley Winston is a Teaching Artist at Urban Gateways in Chicago. For over 45 years, educators, parents, administrators and students have relied on the services of Urban Gateways to enhance a student's educational experience by helping them discover the arts. Through their Artist in Residence programs, their Touring and Matinee Performances, and their custom-designed special projects, Urban Gateways teaches children, their teachers and their parents the value of arts in education. They believe the skills developed and knowledge acquired through arts study—observing a subject matter, working within it, studying its social, historical, and humanistic context, and analyzing and critiquing it—directly apply to, and directly improve, other courses of study and other aspects of the student’s life. Ashley also works as an actor and model.