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CREC Arts Director Kim Stroud Named 2018 Recipient of Busnhell's William A. Yandow Award
Kim Stroud, director of the arts at CREC Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts High School (GHAA), will receive the William A. Yandow educator award from the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday, June 24, at 11 a.m. at 166 Capitol Street, Hartford. Stroud was chosen because she met and exceeded the criteria for demonstrating proven leadership with students, parents, colleagues, and community members, contributing to the advancement of curriculum, and displaying exceptional talent and dedication as an educator, administrator, or advocate.
Throughout his life, William A. Yandow made significant contributions to his nation, local communities, the Arts, and education. As a longtime Bushnell patron and Overseer, the Bushnell recognizes his dedication to the Arts and its role in the education and development of young people with this annual educator award.Stroud lives in Madison and has worked at GHAA since 1993, where she has been the school’s dance department chairperson, assistant director of the arts, and director of the arts. She is also the general director of the Center for Creative Youth at Wesleyan University.
“I have received quite a bit of recognition this year and this is the icing on the cake,” she said. “I find myself a bit overwhelmed and truly grateful. As an artist and a teacher, you get used to plugging along, doing what you do for your students no matter what, support or not, recognition or not. It is heartwarming to know someone wants to shine a light on our work. It is humbling to be the person in that light.”
Stroud's former positions include serving as the administrator for dance programs for city youth through the school of the Hartford City Ballet, the general director and dance chairperson for the Center for Creative Youth, and the head of the diversity committee for the International NETWORK of Performing and Visual Arts Schools.
Her most recent honor is receiving the 2018 Arts Hero Award for the Greater Hartford region from the Department of Economic and Community Development’s Office of the Arts at a ceremony in April. Stroud has also been named a member of the International Dance Council of UNESCO and she received a citation from former Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and the City of Hartford for teaching. In 2012, Dance Teacher Magazine honored her as Outstanding Dance Educator. In 2009, she received the Teacher of the Year award from the International Arts Schools Network. Stroud was bestowed Teacher Recognition from the Connecticut Dance Alliance in 2007 and the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts in 2000. The National Dance Education Organization named her Outstanding Dance Educator of the Year in 2005.
Stroud served on the faculty of the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City, SUNY Purchase, the University of Hartford, and The Hartford Conservatory. She was a Principal Soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company for eleven years, touring the world. She has also danced and toured with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, performed in the Universal Studio film production of The Wiz, and as a guest artist with Katherine Dunham and the Gemini Dance Company.
Stroud was also a master teacher for the University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Southern California at Los Angeles, the University of Connecticut, Eastern Connecticut State University, Randolf-Macon Women's College in Virginia, the University of Hartford, and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. She attended SUNY at Purchase and holds a degree in Dance Performance and Pedagogy.
