Taneshia Nash Laird Completes Arts Leadership Residency at the University of Michigan's EXCEL Lab

ANN ARBOR, MI — February 16, 2026 — Taneshia Nash Laird, Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Berklee College of Music and a national voice in cultural policy and arts leadership, completed a two-day residency on February 12–13, 2026 with the EXCEL Lab & Career Center at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Across the residency, Nash Laird worked directly with graduate and undergraduate students through one-on-one career coaching sessions and led a public workshop, "Strategies for Sustainability in Arts Leadership," for the campus community. She joined Dr. antonio cuyler's graduate course, Leading & Managing Global Majority Cultural Organizations, for an extended classroom conversation, and headlined the SMTD × Trotter Distinguished Leadership Series with a lunchtime discussion on identity and cultural policy, hosted in partnership with the Trotter Multicultural Center.

The residency drew on Nash Laird's distinctive cross-sector vantage — built across commercial real estate, cultural institution leadership, municipal economic development, and the performing arts — to help emerging artists think rigorously about ownership, sustainability, and the systems that determine who gets to lead.

The engagement reflects the throughline of Nash Laird's work as an educator and Architect of Access: equipping the next generation to convert talent and cultural wealth into durable institutional power across capital, culture, and community.