With the release of A Nation at Risk in April 1983, Americans faced a decade of increasing interest in education reform. In Tennessee, that emphasis took the form of Governor Lamar Alexander’s Better Schools Program, through which new tax dollars and expanded state programs were instituted.
For the first time, the Tennessee Department of Education began to play an active role in promoting the importance of the arts as an integral part of the education of all students. When a panel of prominent arts educators was convened to establish priorities, they included the importance of creating ways to train teachers in the effective use of new state curriculum frameworks in the arts.
In 1984, Joe Giles was appointed to the newly created position of Director of Arts Education for the State of Tennessee. Using the style of ancient Greek learning centers as his model, Giles conceived the idea of using the appropriated state funds to create a unique, modern-day “Academy” that would help raise teaching standards among arts educators across Tennessee.
During the summers of 1985 and 1986, pilot programs were introduced in all three grand divisions of the state. Teachers flocked to the free weeklong events in which nationally known arts educators came to Tennessee and, using the new arts frameworks as their guide, provided stimulating and intensive training for teachers of art and music.
From the beginning, a conscious decision was made that theTennessee Arts Academy would be the top-of-the-line program in professional development for teachers of the arts. Each year the faculty, performers, and speakers have been chosen by applying stringent standards of personal and professional excellence, thereby ensuring that Tennessee’s teachers will not only acquire knowledge but will be inspired and renewed in their efforts to fulfill the mission of educating the complete child.
After two years of remarkable success and in order to maximize the use of state funding, it was decided to institutionalize the summer program. The campus of Belmont University was chosen as a permanent home because of its central location, its aesthetic beauty, and its personnel, who were interested in working with the state to develop the new entity, the Tennessee Arts Academy. Cynthia Curtis, then professor of music education at Belmont and now retired dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, was selected as the Academy’s first dean.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Academy began with workshops in music and art and, in 1988, was expanded to include theatre. Several years later, classes in school administration were added which eventually evolved into the arts leadership and administration track. The multidisciplinary trio track and the arts integration, creative drama, and movement classes have all helped to broaden and strengthen the Academy’s curricular offerings.
The first musers were invited to the Academy in the early 1990s. Many innovative ideas and events were incorporated into the daily schedule, including the Academy Chorale; the TAA professional, teacher, and student art exhibitions; arts expo and vendor fair; artist market; and Academy awards, all of which are now program mainstays. In the late 1990s, theTennessee Arts Academy Foundation was created to help financially support TAA.
In the year 2000, Jeanette Crosswhite assumed the role of Academy dean. Arts Academy America was established in 2002, giving arts teachers from outside Tennessee the opportunity to become full participants in the Academy experience. In 2008, the TAA leadership torch was passed to Madeline Bridges and Frank Bluestein. Existing programs were expanded and new programs were initiated. In response to the COVID crisis, the Academy went virtual in both 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the first TAA Virtual Winter Retreat was held as a way to help Academy participants refresh their skills, reenergize their spirits, and reconnect with faculty and colleagues. In 2024, the TAA Arts Rich Schools Program and Awards was initiated, along with mentorship opportunities, teacher recognition programs, master classes, and many networking and outreach events. The Tennessee Arts Academy truly became a year-round resource for arts educators. And in 2025, Middle Tennessee State University assumed the role of host campus for the newly renamed TAA Summer Institute.
After much scrutiny and refining, the Tennessee Arts Academy continues to sponsor the longest-running premier summer program in America for kindergarten through twelfth grade professional development and teacher training in music, theatre, dance, and visual art. Since its inception, TAA has trained more than eight thousand teachers and administrators. As of today, more than three million students have been positively impacted by teachers who have attended Tennessee Arts Academy programs. More significantly, the lasting benefit of the Academy endures and continues to multiply.
