Welcome to the 2021 Tennessee Arts Academy

Dear 2021 Tennessee Arts Academy Participant:
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Greetings!!
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On behalf of the 2021 TAA faculty, artists, speakers, and staff, I want to welcome you to the 35th anniversary edition of the Tennessee Arts Academy. We hope this week will be a meaningful and educational experience. We have done everything in our power to find the very best instructors, speakers, and performers to both enrich your teaching and to meet your personal artistic goals.

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This is more than likely an understatement, but we know that this has been a tough and unprecedented school year. I admire you for having the tenacity to stick with it all year and then to come right back and give up a week of your precious holiday time to join us at the Academy. Beyond just the “learning,” we will endeavor to rejuvenate your soul, bring some joy and fun back in your teaching, and do everything we can to reaffirm the important role the arts play in your own life and in the lives of the students you encounter day in and day out. That is the least we can do after all that has transpired these last 15 months.

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Of course, with this year’s Academy being virtual, we will need to make some adjustments to the normal schedule. For those of you who were with us last year, this session will be very similar to 2020. If you are new to the Academy or if you last attended during one of our on-campus sessions, you will find this year slightly different, but very similar in style and format to our regular offerings. Our exclusive and proprietary TAA virtual platform will allow you to easily access all of your classes, musings, performances, and Interludes. The Academy day has been restructured to be more flexible. Besides your two core morning classes, you will have the option each afternoon to take a minimum of one class or a maximum of four during the Interlude choice session time period.  In order to enable you to easily complete earning 36 hours of professional development credit, we have also built in a two-week post-Academy session that you can access at your own pace. This year, you will have the ability to complete almost all of your hours
during the Academy week, or alternately, utilize the two-week post-Academy session to gain the needed recertification credits. And here is the exciting news - because this year we are virtual, we are able to bring you faculty, performers, and speakers from all over the world. And because of that, we have lined up some really excellent artists and teachers that we would have ordinarily been unable to secure. So virtual does have its advantages!! You are in for a real treat.
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Please browse around this site and familiarize yourself with all the features. If you have not downloaded ZOOM (our online classroom provider) to your computer, please do so by following the instructions on this website. If you have questions, feel free to email us at taa@belmont.edu or call us at (615) 460-5451, and we will be glad to make sense of it all.
 
Our entire Academy team is here (virtually, by email, and by phone!) to serve you. Let us know if there is anything we can do to help make this the best week possible. We are thrilled to be able to share this time with you and to meet the goals of our 2021 theme - inspiring learning and changing lives. That is what you do every day of the school year. We aim this week to do the same.

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Take care,

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Frank Bluestein

TAA Executive Director