Harlem Stage Hosts Inaugural ‘Good Ground’ Leadership Cohort at Columbia University
The University’s in-kind program facilitated space for an intensive workshop for emerging women arts leaders in New York and across the country.
This summer, Columbia University hosted the inaugural cohort of Harlem Stage’s Good Ground program at the Lee C. Bollinger Forum.
Good Ground is an 18-month intensive leadership program led by Harlem Stage (a Columbia Community Service grantee) to grow early-career women leaders from performing arts institutions, theaters, and HBCUs across the United States and the United Kingdom.
Its creation was in direct response to a phenomenon known as the “Great Breakup,” which has seen women, particularly Black women, leaders exit organizations at the highest rate ever recorded. It’s not for lack of ambition or talent, but rather the absence of support structures to keep those leaders thriving. Good Ground is hoping to solve for that by preparing leaders to bring the structures they build in the program out into the arts world.
The program is chaired by Tony Award-nominated actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and led by Indira Etwaroo, artistic director and CEO of Harlem Stage, who describes the program as “a sacred and safe space for fourteen remarkable early-career Black women and beyond leaders to come together to write a radically new chapter for the field of arts and culture.”
From June 27-30, 14 fellows, who were nominated by seven partner institutions in the arts and higher education, came to Columbia to participate in leadership labs, where they worked through the realities of leading an arts institution. They also participated in master classes on the skills that leadership requires, such as governance, fundraising, negotiation, branding, and organizational strategy. Fellows were paired in one-on-one mentorship relationships with accomplished leaders in the arts.
Fellows included:
- Alisha Artry (Tiata Fahodzi, United Kingdom)
- Kayla Marie Bowles (Society of Voice Arts and Sciences, New York)
- Kyla Jeanne Butts (Columbia University, New York)
- Kyria Geneva Cameron (The Billie Holiday Theatre, Brooklyn)
- Bethany Cintron (Harlem Stage, New York)
- Zenzele Daniels (Harlem Stage, New York)
- Njeri Holland (North Carolina A&T University, North Carolina)
- Asili N. Johnson (MFA, Duke University, North Carolina)
- Julianna Faye Márquez (Harlem Stage, New York)
- Taylor Mills (Spelman College, Georgia)
- Lauryn Newly (The Ensemble Theatre, Texas)
- Jasmine Reed (The Theater Offensive, Massachusetts)
- Jaadyn Rogers (Howard University, District of Columbia)
- Alexis Kulani Woodard (Yale University, Connecticut)
Columbia was proud to serve as host sponsor for the program, as part of its in-kind program for community organizations.
You can continue to follow the work of the fellows and the Good Ground program here.
