McIntyre-Martinez leads young people at the Glendale-Mountain View Community Learning Center in an energetic kinesthetic warm up focusing on hand-eye coordination.
WRITTEN BY JULIA LYON
hen the dance lady came to the Hartland Apartments, Abdullahi Mberwa and his friends always showed up. They wanted to dance and play drums with this energetic woman who taught twice a week at their Glendale apartment complex.
Kelby McIntyre-Martinez did dance, but she also listened to what they wanted to do and learn. She kept showing up and the kids did, too.
“She’s one of my role models to this day,” said Mberwa, now 31.
For more than 15 years, the University of Utah College of Fine Arts has brought arts education opportunities to children living in Glendale. McIntyre-Martinez, now the Associate Dean for Arts Education & Community Engagement, is among the hundreds from the U — including faculty, staff, and students — who have taught, organized, and collaborated with Glendale kids in dance, drama, music, and the visual arts.
Those classes first took place at what was then known as the Hartland Apartments. Then they moved to the University Neighborhood Partners Hartland Partnership Center next door, the Glendale-Mountain View Community Learning Center, and Glendale Middle School.
The ongoing partnership benefits not only K-12 students, but also U students who enhance their teaching skills while working with students from a variety of backgrounds. But the College of Fine Arts isn’t the only U group supporting newcomers.
Since 2004, the College of Social Work has been a key partner too, sending over 80 students to UNP Hartland to support kids and families. During this time, students and faculty from other parts of the U including the College of Education, College of Law, Occupational Therapy, the U’s Service Corps, the Justice Advocacy Fellowship, and the College of Nursing have also come to Glendale to work in partnership with residents and other local partners.
“It’s a way for the kids we’re working with to learn from many different kinds of people, and that shapes who they are as they grow up in our community,” said Jennifer Mayer-Glenn, Director of University Neighborhood Partners. “Students from the university have an opportunity to engage with kids and families that maybe they wouldn’t have otherwise, and that allows us as a society to care about each other more and understand each other more.”
It was 2008 when Michael Hardman, then Dean of the College of Education, thought McIntyre-Martinez, with her background as an arts educator and choreographer, might be the perfect person to work with kids at Hartland. Their parents, immigrants and recently resettled refugees, were taking English and citizenship classes in the afternoon. Their kids needed something to do.
So they danced with “Miss Kelby.” Acted out stories and sang. Middle and high school students filled her classes first, until the younger children and siblings announced it was their turn, and the program grew.
Whether it was dancing to a new song from Ghana or exploring a student’s new hobby like percussion, the kids’ interests often shaped what they did. What had begun as a way to keep kids busy became a fusion of talents and people from around the world.
“I was learning from the young people and the young people were learning from me,” McIntyre-Martinez recalled.
One of those was Mberwa.
“I would go and participate and would forget about what was going on at home or going on outside,” he said. “It was an escape from everything.”
Mberwa was 9 years old when he came to Utah as a refugee from Somalia. As he grew up, he kept coming back to Hartland, even working as a youth coordinator at UNP Hartland from 2018 to 2021. He noticed that when “Miss Kelby” appeared, kids did, too.
“We had the most kids show up on that day because of her,” he said.
BFA Theatre Teaching Student, Alia Acosta, leads a theatre lesson focusing on telling a story about nocturnal animals and their habitats. Acosta is a CFA Intern at the Community Learning Center, which allows students invaluable opportunities to apply the knowledge and skills they are learning at the U authentically alongside community partners.
Over the years, McIntyre-Martinez and some of the Glendale kids performed all over including on the University of Utah campus. For some, it would be their first time there — but not their last.
Some of her former students enrolled at Salt Lake Community College and the University of Utah, receiving associate and four-year degrees in nursing, business, education and arts education.
For McIntyre-Martinez, it’s proof the partnership is making a difference.
“All children deserve a high-quality arts experience where they can have a space to be creative, think critically, problem solve, and collaborate with humans from across the globe,” she said. “And that’s what the programs at Hartland and Glendale are to me. That’s why I continue to go back.”
On a recent afternoon, Mountain View Elementary students danced with McIntyre-Martinez in the community learning center.
They created body percussions, swishing their hands and stomping their feet. Then she introduced Alia Acosta, a University of Utah sophomore getting a degree in theatre teaching.
“Have any of you daydreamed before?” Acosta asked the students. “We’re going to play with our imagination!”
Teaching in Glendale is a “huge” benefit to her, Acosta said.
It’s in Glendale where she can test ideas and teaching plans, while working with a wide variety of students, some of whom may be learning English.
The U students offer Glendale kids an opportunity to discover new things and build upon their talents, interests, and strengths.
Students use their imaginations to create and bring characters to life
Some students are so busy during the school year focusing on reading and English that they can’t take advantage of all the arts at school, said P.E. teacher Lucas Tucker, who coordinates after school and summer school programs at Glendale Middle School.
Summer school gives them time to explore. Tucker remembers how, one summer, U students taught kids ukulele and songwriting.
“The kids were so proud of themselves,” Tucker said. “They learned these chords, learned how to play and could go home and show their parents.”
The College of Fine Arts partnership provides Glendale students with after school activities that their parents might not have the means or time to support, explained Keri Taddie, the Community Learning Center Coordinator.
“If our students are going to have the kind of experiences that we know are important for all children to have access to, they are going to have to happen here,” she said.
“Our middle school students are old enough to stay home alone in the summer or after school, but they choose to come to the arts programs instead. They’re staying because they want to be engaged in something, something healthy,” Taddie said. “It’s creating opportunities that speak to our students and their backgrounds and validates who they are, rather than expecting them to assimilate.”
Some College of Fine Arts students come to Glendale in the summer to do visual arts with kids through a program called ArtsBridge.
ArtsBridge director Kerri Hopkins knows her U students will receive immediate — and honest — feedback from kids.
Sometimes what the U students discover is that their lessons don’t work, so they have to adjust their teaching plans.
“It’s making them better teachers,” Tucker said.
While the college students are learning, Glendale kids are learning more about college and what students do there.
“They’re at an age where a lot of them feel open to ask them questions,” Hopkins said. “They can see that people from the University value them and want to work with them.”
Mberwa and McIntyre-Martinez
Some students are so busy during the school year focusing on reading and English that they can’t take advantage of all the arts at school, said P.E. teacher Lucas Tucker, who coordinates after school and summer school programs at Glendale Middle School.
Summer school gives them time to explore. Tucker remembers how, one summer, U students taught kids ukulele and songwriting.
“The kids were so proud of themselves,” Tucker said. “They learned these chords, learned how to play and could go home and show their parents.”
The College of Fine Arts partnership provides Glendale students with after school activities that their parents might not have the means or time to support, explained Keri Taddie, the Community Learning Center Coordinator.
“If our students are going to have the kind of experiences that we know are important for all children to have access to, they are going to have to happen here,” she said.
“Our middle school students are old enough to stay home alone in the summer or after school, but they choose to come to the arts programs instead. They’re staying because they want to be engaged in something, something healthy,” Taddie said. “It’s creating opportunities that speak to our students and their backgrounds and validates who they are, rather than expecting them to assimilate.”
Some College of Fine Arts students come to Glendale in the summer to do visual arts with kids through a program called ArtsBridge.
ArtsBridge director Kerri Hopkins knows her U students will receive immediate — and honest — feedback from kids.
Sometimes what the U students discover is that their lessons don’t work, so they have to adjust their teaching plans.
“It’s making them better teachers,” Tucker said.
While the college students are learning, Glendale kids are learning more about college and what students do there.
“They’re at an age where a lot of them feel open to ask them questions,” Hopkins said. “They can see that people from the University value them and want to work with them.” ▪
