SPOTLIGHT: Annenberg Center hires education director to serve as public liason

Thea Diamond has a passion for the arts and a passion for education. And with her new position at the University, she can combine her two passions to benefit students and the University community. Diamond, who was named education director for the Annenberg Center recently, said she has a big job ahead of her. "In a nutshell, my chief responsibility is to serve as a liaison between performing arts groups that come into the Annenberg Center and the public," Diamond, also a graduate student in English at the University, said. "The chief public is the University community, but the public extends to West Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley." According to Diamond, the link between the arts and education has been given much attention lately. "Arts in education is a very hot topic right now," she said. "The government suddenly seems to realize that you can use the arts as a way of turning people on academically." Diamond said her job deals has several main focuses including outreach to professors, undergraduates, graduate students and staff through international and multicultural music, dance and theater. "We're like this enormous elephant on campus that everybody either walks around or has become blind to, but they never go in it or see it," Diamond added. The second focus of her job is to provide acting workshops and seminars for students and to integrate the offerings of the Center into the classrooms, Stephen Goff, Annenberg Center managing director said. "That's her goal," Goff said. "And her whole contact deals with how to relate educationally what we do on the stage." Diamond's third responsibility is to provide educational guides for campus student groups that already have community outreach tutoring program. Goff added that the Annenberg Center works with 300 schools in the Delaware Valley, from elementary schools to high schools. "Its a way of raising the consciousness of everybody that's involved as well as creating arts literacy and literacy in general," Diamond said. "Some of these kids we work with have never seen a play before." Diamond is currently working to connect the play My Children! My Africa!, which will be performed on campus in February, as a supplement to the Freshman Reading Program. "The Frederick Douglass narrative deals with similar themes, such as dignity, prejudice, equality, and the importance of education," she said. Goff said that Diamond was an excellent choice for the job, which is funded through a grant by the Annenberg Foundation. "With her involvement prior to working for us in the English department, her knowledge of the University and her backround in theater, it all seemed to fit," he said. Diamond said it was a hard transition from being a graduate student to being a professional. "It's rough to go from graduate student life, where you wake up at 11 a.m., to the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. world where you're expected to be some place on time," she said. "I have a great deal of freedom in my job and I just find it exhilarating."

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