In a special weekly series, the College of Liberal Arts is featuring a faculty member from one of our 13 departments. We asked questions about why they are passionate about the subjects they study and teach, and how they found their path to CSU. See all “Faculty Friday” features here.
Meet a group of instructors from the LEAP Institute for the Arts. LEAP provides students the professional resources they need to become more marketable in the creative sector, equipping them for jobs in arts administration, mainstream entertainment, arts advocacy, and more.
Antonio Cuyler
Assistant Professor of Arts Administration and Coordinator of Internships
Antonio Cuyler teaches the LEAP internship course and seminar. He teaches arts management because he wants to protect culture for humanity by assisting the professional preparedness of arts management and arts management educators. He loves teaching arts management most because he can impress upon his students, who will become future arts managers, the importance of the idea that all should have the right to live creative and expressive lives on their own terms. His desire to become an opera manager who managed artistic administration for opera companies inspired his interest in arts management. Outside of his work with LEAP, Cuyler has been practicing yoga for almost 13 years, including teaching yoga and meeting the “Hugging Saint” Amma in 2012.
Sandy Ceas
Adjunct Faculty
Sandra Ceas is a life-learner who believes that the intersection of academics, students, and various cultures creates a unique opportunity to creatively share and learn from one another. As a professor, Ceas implements this belief by teaching students that art expressions and creative thinking can lower barriers and connect people – that we don’t always have to speak the same language to communicate with one another.
Ceas has a fifteen-year exhibition history nationally and internationally and 30+ years of teaching and speaking at various public venues including conferences, college campuses, US military exhibitions, and creative and spiritual retreats. She is inspired by serendipitous nature of travel and discovery. Ceas’ work as an international arts collaborator leads to her hands-on approach in her LEAP course, Arts Collaboration and the Community. When speaking about the course she expressed that it’s her favorite class to teach “because it has a powerful mix of theory and practice. I enjoy pushing students to take risks and explore possibilities where art can affect social change.”
Fun fact about Sandy: She was a free-fall skydiver and loved it! Dreams about flying is natural for her.
Emelie Borello
Adjunct Faculty
Emelie Borello was one of the first cohort to graduate from the LEAP master’s program in 2015. After graduation, she began teaching arts management courses for the LEAP undergraduate minor and has been doing so ever since! Studying and teaching at CSU came natural to Borello as her grandfather attended Colorado Agricultural College, and her father, uncle, and sister have all graduated from CSU. As a teacher, Borello enjoys being able to learn and grow in the field of arts administration as she works to help students that have an interest in combining the business side of the arts with their major program to explore different ways to support arts programming.
Borello’s favorite class to teach is LEAP 200: Advocacy in the Visual and Performing Arts. This course offers students an opportunity to learn about how they can go beyond just attending and supporting local arts programs to actually make a difference on a greater scale through policy making. Of all the classes, this course really engages the students in thought and conversation about larger issues and challenges them to see more than one side to an issue.
