Arts educators from throughout West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania have until June 5 to register for the Summer Institute for Teacher Education for the Arts at West Virginia University.

The program �€which will be June 18-23 at WVU ’s Creative Arts Center �€is designed to improve and enhance K-12 instruction of the performing and visual arts in public and private schools in the region. Teachers attending the intensive, five-day institute will learn fresh teaching strategies and renew current instruction methods. They will also work on individual goals in their areas of concentration, including art, theater and music.

Workshop leaders will include faculty members from the WVU College of Creative Arts, noted arts educators from across the country, and professional artists, musicians and actors.

In addition to events in Morgantown, the teachers will take part in field trips to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and a musical event at the Pittsburgh National Aviary featuring flutist Michael Pestel performing with the birds.

Mary Goetze, a music educator who works with the International Vocal Ensemble at Indiana University , will be keynote speaker at the opening ceremony Sunday, June 18.

Goetze is committed to multiculturalism, teacher education and children’s singing. As a clinician, author and conductor, she has educated teachers about children’s voices. Through her research, musical composition and teaching practice, she paved the way for the surge of children’s choirs across the country. She was also a coordinating author of �€?Share the Music�€? and �€?Spotlight on Music�€? books for grades K-8.

Other workshop leaders and participating performers:

�€�  Mary Helen Solomon, St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School in Jacksonville , Fla. Solomon employs the Orff Schulwerk method of teaching music and movement to students in preschool through sixth grade. She also teaches at the Eastman School of Music and has been involved with theater for children through Jacksonville University and Episcopal High School in Jacksonville for the last 16 years. She has authored several books and presented numerous workshops throughout the United States and New Zealand .

�€�  Janet Robbins, professor of music at WVU . Robbins specializes in general music methods, Orff Schulwerk and qualitative research. She has taught in the summer Orff Schulwerk Teacher Training Course at the Eastman School of Music for the past 12 years.

�€�  Michael Pestel, an artist and musician who has performed, exhibited and lectured throughout the United States , Europe, Japan and Australia . He has performed on flute, contralto clarinet and woodwinds with birds. He is chair of the studio arts program at Chatham College . His CD, �€?Ornithology-Shadows,�€? is a musical conversation between two aviaries in Pittsburgh and Amsterdam .

�€�  William J. Thomas, coordinator of art education and foundations at WVU . In addition to teaching in the studio and art education areas, Thomas is director and principal instructor for the WVU Division of Art’s Saturday Program for Children.

�€�  Victoria Fergus, associate professor of art at WVU , has more than 25 years of teaching experience, including K-12 and higher education. She teaches art education for art majors, elementary and early childhood majors, foundations, ceramics, crafts, graphic design, drawing, and art education graduate studies.

�€�  Joann Spencer Siegrist, professor of puppetry and creative dramatics at WVU and director of the Puppet Mobile. Siegrist conducts workshops statewide, regionally and nationally for creative drama and puppetry production; develops educational puppet videos; and works as a consultant for many national groups.

�€�  Pat Whitton Forrest, founder of the publishing company New Plays Inc. in Charlottesville , Va. She is an internationally known child drama educator who has taught theater classes and directed plays; written articles, plays and books; and led workshops and demonstrations across the United States . She has served on committees on children’s theater and theater in education.

�€�  Hobey Ford, creator of Golden Rod Puppets. Ford designs, builds and performs puppet productions throughout the United States and Canada . He is based in western North Carolina , near Asheville , but began working with puppets at The State University of New York in Purchase, where he studied art. He founded Golden Rod Puppets in 1980 and has worked at such venues as The Smithsonian Museum, The Kennedy Center, The Jim Henson International Festival of Puppetry, schools, festivals, libraries and theaters.

�€�  Joy Faini Saab, a researcher with extensive experience integrating the arts in elementary classrooms. Saab has served as the WVU liaison with Suncrest Primary School in Morgantown for 12 years and has also implemented curriculum revisions, teacher development, parent education and integrated units at many other schools in the Morgantown area.

The College of Creative Arts received a $92,000 grant in 2003 from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation to develop the initial Summer Institute for Teacher Education for the Arts program. In 2005, the college received an additional $84,000 grant from the foundation to continue to develop the program through 2006 and to add a distance education component.

Other partners in the program are the Community Foundation of Fayette County, Pa.; selected arts teachers currently practicing in K-12 education; and the departments of education in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

William Winsor, associate dean of the college, initiated the program, guided the grant application, and serves as principal investigator with the foundation. Cyndi Conner-Bess, a faculty member in the WVU Division of Music, serves as the program director, and Tim Valentine, a recent graduate of WVU , is the program manager.

For more information or to register, contact Bess at cyndibess@aol.com or 304-293-4841 ext. 3170.