CSHPE alum, CEDER staff member Victoria Bigelow works to bring music back to Flint schools
CSHPE alumna and CEDER staff member Dr. Victoria Bigelow was featured in a Faculty/Staff Spotlight in The University Record. Safiya Merchant, writer at The Record, shares how Bigelow grew her professional collaboration with Flint Community Schools into a personal mission to bring music back to Flint students.
Bigelow, Evaluation Coordinator in the Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER), first started working in Flint Schools as a postdoctoral scholar in 2014. After creating educational and financial plans for Flint Schools as part of her work, the district asked her to create an arts plan. Given Bigelow’s background in music, she was well-suited to the task and has been successful at securing the resources to redevelop the arts in Flint Schools.
Bigelow says, “I really believe in social justice and it’s a very important thing for me to fight for. We don’t have to search for the arts in Ann Arbor, and kids have so many opportunities to learn to play, to sing. But in Flint, you have a whole school district of kids juxtaposed with a beautiful cultural center that they have not had access to and no access to programming during the day. It was important for me to try and change that.”