Jennifer (Zhuotong Li) Lee

I started my journey as a teaching artist in 2014 during my sophomore year, working part-time while completing my bachelor's degree, which I finished in 2016. All of my early studying and working experience was in China, where I founded an educational consulting company in Tianjin. I taught performance-related courses including singing, dancing, and especially jazz dance, while also managing the administrative side by recruiting other teaching artists for various disciplines like hip-hop, yoga, Pilates, and ballet. I also taught English as a second language, including TOEFL, IELTS, and Duolingo preparation. My students ranged from age 3 all the way to 80, spanning from preschool to college and even senior centers, with contracted after-school programs and partnerships with various organizations and institutions. When the pandemic hit in 2019 and students couldn't come to my studio, I had to adapt by going to their locations to conduct performances and instruction. This challenging time made me rethink grad school. I had visited NYU in 2016 during a summer travel and work program where I did an internship in the hospitality industry in Traverse City, Michigan, and I knew it was my dream school. I applied to NYU in 2022 and discovered the educational theater program in Steinhardt, which was perfectly designed for people with artistic skill sets and teaching experience. I actually finished my entire application within three days before the deadline, and I received my acceptance offer just one week after the extension date. Everything aligned very quickly. Now I'm the founder of The Access (A-X-I-S) for cross-cultural learning, a nonprofit organization that promotes bilingual theater education. Last summer, I became the first Chinese bilingual theater teacher at Hudson Wayne Emergency School on 52nd Street in Manhattan, leading a theater program in their summer camp. I'm currently still a student working on my teaching certificate, and my organization's board includes three people: myself, a Spanish bilingual teacher, and a 70-year-old leader who has worked in the public school system for over 20 years promoting African American culture.