Tetia Lee Receives Emerging Arts Leadership Fellowship

Tetia Lee has been selected as one of five regional fellows receiving a professional development scholarship for Emerging Arts Leaders. Funded by Chicago’s Joyce Foundation and coordinated by Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit for advancing the arts, the program supports arts leaders of color from the Great Lakes region. Lee will receive a $3,000 scholarship to attend three Americans for the Arts events over the next year: the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Providence, RI, Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, and the Annual Convention in Baltimore, MD. Throughout the year, Fellows will have opportunity for exchange and reflection with arts leaders from throughout the country. Additionally they will receive individualized career coaching.

Lee says of her ambitions as an arts leader, “I aspire to continually create and implement innovative programs and services to make the arts accessible at a grass roots level. Through creating greater accessibility to the arts, I hope to elevate the importance of the arts within the fabric of the communities I serve. I aim to be a component of the leadership for creating a model for greater statewide, national and international arts education and awareness.” 

“We are proud to contribute to the advancement of these bright and talented local arts leaders,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “Dedicated and ambitious leaders are essential to the success and growth of arts and culture in this country.”

Tetia Lee is the Executive Director of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, an arts council and umbrella organization for a fourteen county region in North Central Indiana.  Over the last 13 years, Lee has worked for nonprofit arts councils throughout the state of Indiana – all regional arts partners of the Indiana Arts Commission, the state agency. Lee served in the capacities of Gallery Director, Instructor, and Outreach Coordinator while completing her degrees from the American Academy of Art and Indiana State University. After completion of her MFA in painting, Lee chose to focus on her passion for the arts and community by assuming the role of Assistant Director at Arts Place, an arts organization serving east central Indiana and west central Ohio. In 2007, Lee accepted an offer to lead the Tippecanoe Arts Federation. As executive director, Lee has developed and implemented three programs to provide access to the arts to at-risk and underserved youth, leadership for a cultural plan, and elevated the profile of the organization within the community, around the region and throughout the state. Lee also serves as a member of the Community Council, the Regional Leadership Institute, the board of the YWCA, and Vice President of the Indiana Coalition for the Arts.

This year’s Joyce Fellows are:

Makeba Dixon-Hill

            The Art Institute of Chicago / Chicago, IL

Christina Jensen

            Hyde Park Art Center / Chicago, IL

Tetia Lee

            Tippecanoe Arts Federation / Lafayette, IN

Uri Sands

            TU Dance / St. Paul, MN

Sioux Trujillo

            community+public arts:  DETROIT (at the College for Creative Studies) / Detroit, MI

Activities of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation are provided, in part, with support from the Indiana Arts Commission, a state agency, with funds from the Indiana General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts.