Rodney Van Valkenburg
Rodney Van Valkenburg has been named interim president of ArtsBuild. Dan Bowers, who served as president for the past 11 years, will retire on June 30.
Mr. Van Valkenburg joined ArtsBuild in 2001 after serving for more than 18 years with the Chattanooga Theatre Centre as director of Programs and Director of Education. In his role at ArtsBuild as Director of Grants & Initiatives, Mr. Van Valkenburg has overseen all of ArtsBuild’s arts education and grant-making programs, and has played a key leadership role in ArtsBuild’s mission to build a stronger community through the arts.
ArtsBuild’s board chair Dr. Mary Tanner said, “Rodney has helped ArtsBuild grow into the organization it is today, by guiding and leading important programs that support arts education, arts programs in the community, arts advocacy, and our network of arts organizations in Chattanooga. I feel very confident that Rodney will be a strong leader for the organization through this brief transition.” ArtsBuild is currently conducting a national search for its next president.
Mr. Van Valkenburg is a participant in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Partners in Education program and has served on the program’s Advisory Committee. He currently serves as the coordinator for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Ensuring the Arts for Any Given Child initiative, the Kennedy Center’s national catalyst program for arts education. Chattanooga-Hamilton County was chosen in 2018 as the 26th site to participate in the multiyear community-wide strategic planning initiative.
Mr. Van Valkenburg has also served as a panelist for the Learning in the Arts grants with the National Endowment for the Arts and currently serves as Tennessee state captain for the Americans for the Arts’ national arts advocacy day in Washington, D.C.