Mountain Brook resident leads ASFA as interim director

Despite not being an educator herself, Ann Florie has been involved in education-based causes for many of her decades living in Mountain Brook.

“Education is the common denominator” among many of the challenges faced at a local, state and even national level, Florie said, so the quality of that education is critical.

She served 10 years on the Mountain Brook School Board and volunteered with the PTO, as well as Region 2020, the Birmingham Business Alliance, the Alabama Humanities Foundation and the Kiwanis Club. Though she recently retired from 14 years as executive director of Leadership Birmingham, Florie was called back into action by the Alabama School of Fine Arts to serve as interim executive director this school year.

“I completely admire people who spent a career in education. I think it’s the most important work there is, and ASFA is a very unique entity,” she said.

Former ASFA Executive Director Michael Meeks retired at the end of last school year, and the search is underway for a new permanent leader. In the meantime, Florie said she wants to keep Meeks’ legacy of excellence going and address the school’s needs for the year.

With a background in marketing and promoting other causes and organizations, Florie said she is uniquely qualified to help communicate ASFA’s story with the public. The public school has boarding and commuter students studying music, dance, visual art, theater, creative writing and math/science, but Florie said many people don’t know about the quality of teachers at ASFA and the careers of some of its talented graduates, both in the arts and other fields.

“What I really bring to this is more of an external focus,” she said. “… I think that that’s a great story to tell, and we just need to tell it to as many people as we can.”

ASFA also hosts a number of events throughout the year, from the Red Mountain Theatre Company’s season to speeches by Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin.

By marketing the school more to the public, including through walking tours of the school, Florie said she will help lay the groundwork for building community support on large capital projects in the future. ASFA will have to deal with some infrastructure upgrades, including to dormitories and overall capacity, in the coming years.

“I’m going to try to make sure we have the resources for the infrastructure and the human capacity to deliver what we need to do here,” she said.

Florie’s interim role started in May, when she visited the school to talk with faculty and students. After a summer of preparation, she and other staff returned to ASFA’s campus, located at 1800 Rev. Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd., at the beginning of August to prepare for the new school year.

Florie said she used those conversations to learn about the culture and values of the school, priorities for the staff and potential issues she may need to address.

“When you’re new, you can come in and ask questions and you look at things with different eyes. So I can say, ‘Why do you do that, and why do you do it that way?’” she said.

Since she’s only serving in an interim capacity, Florie said she will not be pursuing big changes during her time at ASFA, but she will work on reaching new people with the school’s story.

Once a new executive director is hired and Florie hands over the reins of the 52-year-old school, likely for the 2020-21 academic year, she said she hopes to leave it ready for an easy transition to new leadership and to achieve its upcoming goals.

“I hope that things are in as good of shape as they were when I came here, so I’ve done no harm, but I also hope that we’ve set up the opportunity for him or her, the executive director, to step right into the community and already have established relationships,” Florie said.

Learn more about the Alabama School of Fine Arts at asfa.k12.al.us.