Congratulations to Dr. Terron Banner for being chosen by AAEP graduates to receive the 2025 Marantz Distinguished Alumni Award. The Marantz Distinguished Alumni Lecture Fund was established in 1999 with gifts from Harold and Kenneth Marantz to honor a distinguished alum of the program. Dr. Banner will be honored at the 2025 Barkan & Marantz Award Celebration where he will present From Hierarchy to Reciprocity: New Frameworks for Arts Engagement (abstract below). 

Dr. Banner serves as Manager of Community Learning and Engagement at The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space, where he oversees educational initiatives, community partnerships, and the UAS Community-Artist-in-Residence Program. He earned his PhD from the Department of Arts Administration, Education, and Policy at OSU in 2019, following his MBA and BA in Studio Art from Kentucky State University, a historically Black university.

Banner's research focuses on the intersection of race, care and justice, arts policies, and arts management practices. His Community Engaged Practice Framework examines how power, race, ethics, identity, and culture shape socially engaged work. His approach bridges university hierarchical structures and community relationship-based power by mobilizing people through "performance regimes," institutions through redefined success metrics, and ideas through community-based evaluation approaches.

Banner has published works including "Black Art, Black Rage, and Black Lives Matter" and "Columbus Africentric Early College: Building the Black Identity through Art and Culture." Forthcoming publications include "Centering Black Imagination and Possibility: Critical Afro-Nostalgia Framework & Black Archival Practice" and a co-authored chapter "(Re)Creating Memories: Archiving Nostalgia in No One Teaches Us How to Be Daughters." He serves as Co-Editor of Possibility: Social Change and the Arts and Humanities and developed/teaches "Black Art in America: Arts and Cultural Policies from Reconstruction to Afrofuturism" at OSU.

From 2023-2026, Banner secured nearly $500,000 in grants for projects including "Care, Culture, & Justice as Practice," "Irrepressible Soul" (which he co-founded and established as a 501(c)(3)), and "Computer Art: Communicating Human Imagination and Intelligence." In 2025, he presented at the OSU Engaged Scholarship Consortium on the Community-Artist-in-Residence Program, the NAEA Convention on community-engaged arts internships, and the Melvin Van Peebles Symposium on Black artistic expression as revolutionary practice. Banner serves in leadership roles including advisory committee and board member for the OSU College of Arts & Sciences Office of Engagement, the Social Justice in the Arts Case Studies Project, OSU Frank W. Hale Black Cultural Center, and ROY G BIV Gallery. In addition to the 2025 Marantz Distinguished Alumni Award, his contributions have been recognized with the 2025 Community Engaged Practitioner Award at OSU.

Presentation abstract

In this presentation, Dr. Banner, Manager of Community Learning and Engagement at The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space, will share insights from his innovative work at the intersection of arts administration, community engagement, and social justice. Drawing from his Community Engaged Practice Framework, Banner will explore how power, race, ethics, and culture shape socially engaged work in arts contexts.

The presentation will highlight Dr. Banner's approach to bridging university hierarchical structures and community relationship-based power through his "performance regimes" model and comprehensive evaluation metrics. Using case studies from his grant-funded initiatives—including Irrepressible Soul and the UAS Community-Artist-in-Residence Program—Dr. Banner will demonstrate practical strategies for mobilizing people, institutions, and ideas to create meaningful collaborations between universities and communities.

This session offers valuable perspectives for arts administrators, educators, and community practitioners interested in developing more equitable, reciprocal, and sustainable approaches to arts-based community engagement.