State Ambassadors
Dr. Kathleen M. Farrand, Arizona DARTS Ambassador
Dr. Kathleen Farrand is an Associate Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. She has taught 1st grade, 3rd grade, preschool, and at the college level. She currently teaches in the Early Childhood Program in the Division of Teacher Preparation. She has a Ph.D. in Language, Education, and Society and a M.A. in Educational Administration from The Ohio State University. In addition, she has an M.Ed. in Elementary Education from the University of Florida and a B.A. in Film Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
She is interested in practices that improve the social and academic success of all learners in inclusive educational settings. Her areas of research focus on the use of dramatic inquiry in inclusive classrooms found along a continuum of educational placements to support student achievement, collaborative inquiry with classroom teachers to examine teacher change overtime and examining how teachers changing awareness of how they position themselves and others connects to student learning and engagement. Dr. Farrand is editor for the Visual Impairment and DeafBlind Education Quarterly journal, and she serves on the executive board for the Council for Exceptional Children-Division on Visual Impairments and Deafblindness. Dr. Farrand is president for the Council of Exceptional Children- Division of Visual and Performing Arts Education. Her recent publications can be found in TEACHING Exceptional Children, Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, and the British Journal of Special Education.
Beverley Holden Johns, Illinois DARTS Ambassador
Bev Johns has been in the field of special education for over 40 years, retiring from the public schools where she developed programs for students with learning disabilities and emotional/behavioral disorders. She founded a public school for children with the most significant behavioral challenges. She is the author or co-author of 23 books. She was a Professional Fellow at MacMurray College. She is currently serving as the secretary of DARTS. She was a Professional Fellow at MacMurray College. She is the recipient of the 2022 DARTS Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2000 Outstanding Leadership Award of CEC, and the recipient of the Romaine Mackie Award given by the Pioneers Division. She has served as President of CCBD and the Pioneers.
Dr. Rhoda Bernard, Massachusetts DARTS Ambassador
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Rhoda Bernard is the Managing Director of the Institute for Accessible Arts Education, a catalyst for the inclusion of people with disabilities in all aspects of visual and performing arts education. She is also the Assistant Chair of Music Education. Bernard holds a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in government from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Music with academic honors in jazz voice from New England Conservatory. She earned both her Master of Education and Doctor of Education degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Bernard regularly presents keynote presentations and research at conferences throughout the United States and abroad, and she provides professional development workshops for educators in local, national, and international forums. Her work has been published in several book chapters and in numerous journals, including Music Educators Journal; Music Education Research; Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education; Mountain Lake Reader; and Arts and Learning Research Journal. Bernard has been honored with the Berklee Urban Service Award (2017), the Boston Conservatory Community Service Award (2011), the Boston Conservatory Faculty/Staff Spirit Award (2007), and the Outstanding Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention (Second Place) from the Arts and Learning Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. An active arts education advocate, she is the immediate past chair of the Arts Education Advisory Council of Americans for the Arts, and she serves on their speakers’ bureau. A vocalist and pianist who specializes in jazz music and Jewish music in Yiddish and Hebrew, she performs regularly with several klezmer bands and has recorded two CDs with the band Klezamir.
Yilin Shen
Indiana
Yilin Shen is a doctoral student in special education at Purdue University. He holds an M.F.A. in art education from China Academy of Art. He is a visual artist specializing in oil painting, and a teaching artist working with individuals with disabilities both in China and the U.S. His research centers on how individuals with disabilities learn in and through the arts, with interests in community-based instruction, inclusive art education, arts integration, and multimodal literacies.
Kent Godfrey
Florida
Kent Godfrey has a BA in acting, a professional diploma in dance studies, and a professional certificate in clowning. As a result, he has been immersed in the arts world and performed for several years. In particular, he has worked as a baseball mascot, arena entertainer, improvisation artist, and actor in a Deaf theater company. While in college, he volunteered to describe plays to blind theatergoers and developed a method of presenting theater to blind patrons through multiple senses. Additionally, he has taught the performing arts to disabled people. During his MA in special education, professional diploma in dance studies, and graduate work in interdisciplinary studies, he focused on developing methods of teaching the performing arts to disabled people. He is now a PhD student in Special Education at Florida State University. His focus is on researching whether or not experiencing tone, rhythm, melody, and harmony multisensorily produces the benefits associated with music to a greater extent than through sound alone.
Adam Chitta
Missouri
Mr. Adam Chitta (key-ta) is a PhD student in Music Education at the University of Missouri. In addition to his doctoral studies, he teaches instrumental methods courses for undergraduate music education students, assists with responsibilities related to Marching Mizzou and concert band ensembles, supervises student teachers, and co-directs Sound Explorers, the university’s adaptive beginning concert band for middle and high school students with developmental disabilities. His research focuses on special education policy literacy in preservice music teacher preparation and supporting students with disabilities in music classrooms. He is also the founder and owner of The Chitta Sound, LLC, which promotes accessibility and outreach for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.