In order to deliver quality arts education to Georgia students, we must ensure a quality supply of professional arts educators. Therefore, the Woodruff Arts Center has envisioned the Professional Learning Initiative to more effectively and efficiently meet the professional development needs of classroom teachers, arts specialists, teaching artists, arts administrators and pre‐service teachers that support student learning in the arts. The Initiative builds on best practices in the area of professional learning and the core competencies within each of the Divisions of the Woodruff Arts Center.

As part of the Professional Learning Initiative, the Woodruff Arts Center is committed to creating the new Georgia Center for Professional Learning in Arts Education.  This Center will provide a unified structure for our collaborative programming efforts in professional development allowing us to build professional learning capacity in Georgia; as well as provide dedicated facilities and state of the art technological capabilities. The Divisions’ existing professional learning programs will be strengthened, expanded and integrated to achieve increased impact.  In this Center we will pool, integrate and magnify successful arts education resources partnering and working with other community organizations to become a resource for the state of Georgia.  We will train artists to become teaching artists.  And professional development and collaborative programming will prepare teachers to partner with artists in the classroom for more effective curriculum delivery.

• Teaching Artist Fundamentals: courses, institutes and workshops for new and emerging Teaching Artists
  
• Arts Partners: A program designed to increase student learning in and through the arts by working within a school with classroom teachers where each grade level experiences arts learning with a Division of the Woodruff Arts Center
  
• Cultural Think Tank offering ongoing forums and conferences related to arts and education
  
• Gathering Place: The Center will function as a community center for the public to host meetings and conferences