Alliance for Arts Education honors UW-Stevens Point’s McKenna

The Wisconsin Alliance for Arts Education (WAAE) honored Gerard McKenna, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s College of Fine Arts and Communication (COFAC), at its recent 25th anniversary reception in Madison.

McKenna was given the 2000 WAAE Arts Career Award which recognizes an individual who "has made sustained, outstanding and significant programmatic, administrative, or support contributions to arts education at the local, state and national levels." In a letter to McKenna, WAAE’s executive director Virgilyn Driscoll thanked him "for his hard work and persistence to excellence for all students statewide."

Dean of COFAC since 1989, McKenna is the founder of the arts management degree at UWSP, the only BA degree in arts management in the UW System. Since 1992 he has managed ArtsWorld, an interdisciplinary summer program for high school arts students at UWSP.

As chairperson of the Stevens Point Arts Council, McKenna assisted the community in building the Riverfront Arts Center.

"One of our great assets at this university -- a university known for teaching -- is our commitment to the arts. This commitment benefits our community as well as our students," McKenna says. He also has served as a board member for the Wisconsin Assembly of Local Arts.

In addition, he has served as chairperson of Region Four of the National Association of Schools of Music; president of the Wisconsin Music Educators Association, board member of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans; and vice president for the Arts, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. In 1992 he was awarded the Wisconsin Music Educators Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

His work on behalf of the arts and arts education in Wisconsin began in 1974 when he joined the UW-Milwaukee faculty and taught courses in music and arts education. In 1978 McKenna co-administered the Tanglewood Symposium Revisited at UW-Milwaukee, a major conference on the status of music and arts education. In addition, he has served on numerous review panels for the Wisconsin Arts Board. McKenna has been a member of WAAE’s honorary board for four years.

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