From the stage to the classroom, there's no stopping star power
At the age of five, Audrey Qween Wicks led the choir at a church in Chicago, where her father ministered. By age 17, she secured her first recording contract, and took her show on the road. She sang the blues for nearly 15 years, traveling extensively and opening for larger acts such as Gladys Knight. “I didn’t ride bikes or play with dolls when I was young. I dressed up and sang to an imaginary audience in room,” she said.
Her musical performances opened the door to a second successful career in acting, where she garnered the Chicago area Jeff Award for creative excellence. As a performance artist, Wicks spent much of her time writing. A faculty member at Columbia College Chicago took note of her work and encouraged her to pursue a degree. Wicks enrolled, and earned her bachelor’s, master of fine arts, and master of arts degrees in creative writing.
While working on her master’s degrees, Wicks taught English classes for high-risk youths. Rather than rely on textbooks and lectures, she integrated the arts into her course, using encounters, poetry, rap songs, and projects that focused students on their personal experiences. “The kids would come running in, and that hooked me. I felt that teaching was a sacred path,” she said.
Today, Wicks attends Argosy University, Chicago, where she is enrolled in the Doctor of Education program in Instructional Leadership. She is the recipient of the current school year DFI Fellowship Award. “I enjoy creating curriculums that produce outstanding student performances,” she said, “I am particularly interested in teaching other educators how to blend arts-integrated subjects that will produce greater student outcomes; closing the minority achievement gap, and addressing college retention issues.”
Wicks’ many professional accomplishments include presenting a paper entitled “Are African American Woman Fulfilling Their Life Goals?” at the African-American and Latino American Adult Education Research Symposium. Northern Illinois University’s Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education published the paper online, and plans to submit it to the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), an online library of education literature sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. In addition to publishing several short stories, Wicks’ first novel, In the Shade of Time, was published in 2005. She is currently working on a book about teaching, entitled Portrait of a Storyteller, which will publish this year.
Since 2000, Wicks has taught creative writing, publishing, drama, a blended course on history and literary arts, and fine arts in association with Chicago State University. She also facilitated a publishing workshop for the university’s Education Department.
“For the past four years, I have employed my artistic skills to design and teach arts-blended workshops for Chicago Public Schools, Charter Schools, and Columbia College Chicago,” she said. “I still sing now, but teaching comes first.”