RealVisions consultants bring a unique blend of arts education wisdom, arts management knowledge, performing arts expertise and analytical skills to their work. Whatever your arts education or arts integration program, we can offer you the benefit of our years of experience in shaping and strengthening arts learning for children.
We want to help you meet and exceed your goals for changing kids' lives through the arts, because the 21st century needs the creativity and imagination of every child.
Dr. Elda Franklin and Dr. Linda Whitesitt
Drs. Franklin and Whitesitt have used macro planning and micro analysis in the evaluation of whole school and professional development arts integration programs. They have developed logic models to help schools align project design components, modify implementation processes and evaluate program impact. They have utilized the field-tested, reliable and valid observation instrument developed by Dr. Franklin in over 1000 classroom observations to assess student engagement, teaching strategies, and planning processes.
Whitesitt and Franklin have worked together as RealVisions’ arts integration evaluation and design team for seven years. They have carried out evaluations of a number of different arts integration and professional development programs, including initiatives supported by U.S. Department of Education Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination grants and Professional Development for Arts Educators grants. Their work has included the three-year evaluation of the Arts Integration in Model Schools Program (Montgomery County, MD), cited in the recent report by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools.
Together they have worked with schools and school districts to design and implement data-driven arts integration projects and align teacher training institutes with program and curricular objectives. They have co-authored an article on creating professional learning communities in arts integration schools and presented sessions on the development of logic models to inform the development, implementation and evaluation of arts integration programs at conferences for the Arts Schools Network and the South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education.
Linda Whitesitt
Whitesitt brings twenty-five years of teaching experience in K-12 and
post-secondary education to her work in arts integration evaluation and
program design. She has led undergraduate and graduate classes at Queens
University (Charlotte), Winthrop University (Rock Hill, SC) and Radford
University (VA), and served as a middle school and high school orchestra
director (Charlotte and Bethesda, MD). Her work includes developing and
coordinating string training programs in Miami Beach, FL and teaching as an
artist-in-residence in West Palm Beach.
Whitesitt has served as a member of a National Endowment for the Arts’ grant review panel and an evaluator for Young Audiences, Inc. She helped form the South Carolina Curriculum Leadership Institute in the Arts and founded community arts organizations and arts celebrations in Charlotte, Rock Hill, and Berkeley Springs, WV.
A published musicologist on American music and women patrons of music, Whitesitt holds degrees in music performance (B.M.) and music history and literature (M.M.) from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University and musicology (Ph.D.) from the University of Maryland at College Park. She is a professional violinist and amateur hammered dulcimer player and has performed in orchestras and chamber ensembles in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.
Elda Franklin
Elda Franklin holds degrees in music performance and music education from
Florida State University and the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro. She is a professor emerita of Music at Winthrop University in
South Carolina, where she taught undergraduate and graduate music education
courses for 25 years, established and directed the Orff-Schulwerk
Certification Program, and received the Distinguished Professor award in
1993. While at Winthrop, Franklin was active as a member of the South
Carolina Arts in Basic Curriculum Steering Committee, and helped establish
the Curriculum Leadership Institutes in the Arts (CLIA) and the Arts
Education Leadership Institute (AELI). In 2001 she served as interim
director of the ABC Project.
During her years at Winthrop, Dr. Franklin was a violist with the Charlotte Symphony, and later served as arts assessment specialist and teaching artist for the Charlotte Symphony’s Education Program. From 1999 until 2009, Franklin was assessment and evaluation consultant for the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center Education Institute in Charlotte, where she was responsible for annual evaluations of the arts-integrated programs at each of the five Blumenthal Partner Schools, and assisted in the training of teaching artists.
Franklin has presented at national and international conferences in the arts, including the Arts Schools Network, the Kennedy Center Partnerships in Education, the North Carolina Conference on the Arts, and the South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education. Her publications include numerous articles in national and international journals on music education and arts assessment, including assessment of teaching artists. She is also active as a violist, performing regularly with local orchestras and opera groups in the Charlotte area, and has recently developed an interest in learning to play Scottish fiddle.
Bennett Lentczner
Bennett Lentczner, administrator, artist and educator, is
recognized across the country for his leadership of the renowned
New World School of the Arts. A university dean and provost for
more than eighteen years, Dr. Lentczner has served on numerous
national, regional, state and local boards and associations as well
as evaluation and accreditation teams.
Dr. Lentczner’s experience in evaluation and assessment includes work with more than 20 chapters of Young Audiences, Inc. (providers of arts education programs and residencies in K-12 schools), The Leonard Bernstein Center for Education through the Arts, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, as well as several projects for Arts Education in Maryland Schools and the Maryland Board of Education, The North Carolina School of the Arts, and The Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, GA.
In the early 1990s, Lentczner chaired the International Council of Fine Arts Deans Arts Education Committee and was responsible for producing its Principles and Standards of Arts Education, a precursor to the national arts standards. He has served on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Getty Foundation for Education in the Arts, and the South Carolina Arts Commission. He has also served as a member of the National Coalition for Arts Education and the Goals 2000 Steering Committee.
More recently, Lentczner fulfilled the role of executive director for the Arts Schools Network, creating a landmark conference in Miami Beach, FL that brought together artists and arts educators, and a major conference on arts integration in Oakland, CA. His editorial writings for NETWORK NEWS that spoke to the importance of education in the arts brought praise from many, and as a speaker, Lentczner has inspired many to better understand the importance of an education that includes the arts. “There are many ideas out there now about “arts education” that are not centered on the arts and not educational in the sense of study and learning. I hope [all] will read your message and think deeply about it” wrote Sam Hope, executive director of the National Arts Accrediting Agencies.
Lentczner holds degrees from the Juilliard School of Music, Teachers College, Columbia University and Ball State University, and is the founding president of RealVisions.
Nancy Wolcott
Nancy Wolcott is an experienced writer and editor, most recently
producing newsletters and conference materials for the international
Arts Schools Network. She held senior administrative positions at the
Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach and New World School of the Arts in
Miami, and has published articles nationally on education and the
arts. She has presented workshops at conferences sponsored by the Arts
Schools Network and the Consortium for Liberal Education in the Arts,
among others.
Ms. Wolcott serves as Board vice president of Camposition, a contemporary Miami theater company, and for seven years has chaired art and writing panels for the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden educational challenge. She was founding grants chair of the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council, and chaired the Council for two years. She served as secretary of the Dade Cultural Alliance, and has been a frequent arts grants panelist for the city of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County.
Wolcott holds degrees in English from Kalamazoo College and New York University.
Morenga Hunt
Morenga Hunt is Vice President of Education and Director of the
Education Institute at the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing
Arts Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is responsible for
directing the Center's school, community, audience development, and
audience enrichment education programs. He also works with the
Center's president and other senior management on the Center's
programming and marketing to build partnerships and relationships
at the local, regional, and national levels.
The Education Institute's K-5 arts integration program is recognized as a “Successful Program Model” by the Kennedy Center's national Partners in Education Program, of which it is an affiliate member. The Education Institute has received support from the NEA, and various national foundations, to support its work. It was also a recipient of a North Carolina Learning Audiences grant, and was i ncluded in the Dana Foundation's Acts of Achievement, a national Dana Foundation publication on the role of performing arts centers in education. Articles about its work have appeared in the national Teaching Artists Journal, and the Institute has won two national “Educator Apple” awards from the Broadway League for its arts education programs done in conjunction with touring Broadway productions.
Mr. Hunt was formerly the managing director of a cultural arts center in Manchester, England. He served as an advisor and consultant to various arts, education, and cultural groups and agencies in the UK, and also served on numerous panels and boards. He holds a Masters degree in Education from Ohio State University, where he also taught in the College of Education.
He is currently a member of the National Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and serves on various boards and advisory committees, including the Arts Schools NETWORK, the Editorial Board of the national Teaching Artists Journal, and the Education Committee of the Broadway League. He also serves as a trainer, consultant, grants panelist, and panel presenter on the arts and arts education at conferences, seminars, and meetings throughout the country.
Morenga Hunt was selected as a 2003 recipient of the Latin American Excelente "Amigo" Award in Charlotte as the “Non-Latin person most supportive of the Latin Community,” and received a Certificate of Appreciation from the mayor for supporting the artistic and cultural efforts of Charlotte's Caribbean community.