The Obama administration named today Patrice Walker Powell as acting chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Powell was appointed Deputy Chairman for States, Regions, and Local Arts Agencies at the NEA in February 2008 and has been a staff member at the NEA since 1991.
Ms. Powell has been responsible for managing the agency's grants and special projects involving a national network of governmental and nonprofit partners; small grant programs such as Challenge America Fast-Track, and the NEA's AccessAbility activities that are also carried out in conjunction with state and regional organizations.
Shortly after joining the agency in 1991, she was named director of the Expansion Arts Program (which concluded in 1995), responsible for oversight of NEA-funded programs in rural, inner-city, tribal, and ethnically diverse communities. In this capacity, she managed several initiatives including the Community Foundation Initiative with 26 participating foundations, and the Rural Arts Initiative, which funded 20 state arts agencies in their efforts to help stabilize rural arts organizations.
Beginning in 1996, as the director of Local Arts Agencies, Ms. Powell has been responsible for grants to municipal and county agencies throughout the country. Early in 2002, she took on the role of acting deputy chairman providing oversight for grants and awards totaling approximately $40 million. In recent years, Ms. Powell has directed NEA programs including Challenge America Fast-Track which funds civic design, cultural tourism, guest artist, and public arts projects.
Ms. Powell has held staff positions with the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts, which she joined as a performing arts specialist and was promoted to deputy director. Earlier in her career, she served as principal research consultant for a major U.S. Department of Labor report regarding exemplary arts and humanities projects funded under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).
She has worked as an artist representative, media production manager, and an artist-in-residence serving a diverse clientele of artists and cultural programmers. Ms. Powell received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Howard University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University's School of Drama.